The Road Through Mighty Walls
by Trudyann B
Summary: Even if they never get there, the journey to the basement was perhaps all the three friends needed. (Begins as Eren blocks cannonfire by becoming a titan. Armin-centric, with some shifts in POV.)
1. 1 Cross Wall Rose

Attack On Titan Fanfiction

The Road Through Mighty Walls

By Trudyann B. 

Even if they never get there, the journey to the basement was perhaps all the three friends needed. (Begins as Eren blocks cannonfire by becoming a titan. Centers around Armin, with some shifts in POV.)

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  
>Hello, everyone! I hope you enjoy this. As long as I am inspired, I will keep writing. If I'm particularly slow to update, I may be most inspired by a review. ;) I appreciate constructive criticism, too. Please note that this story is about a journey, and not a destination, and while I am proud to take on the task of making it a good one, the basement will remain a mystery for as long as Hijami Isayama feels it should be. The story may end at the door of the basement, or sooner, but not through it. With that in mind, enjoy the road!<p>

CHAPTER 1. In Which our Heroes Cross Wall Rose

The cannonfire was still ringing in Armin's ears as he wondered, not for the first time, how he could possibly still be alive. He was sitting, breathing, thinking, and his heart was beating rapidly. Mikasa, who sat beside him, seemed to the rest of the world as un-phased as she would be in a queue at the market, but Armin knew that behind her disinterested expression, her eyes shone with gratitude toward her continued existence, and that of her friends.

A rotting Titan carcass decomposed quickly around them, likening the two to a couple of steamed dumplings in the summer heat. He gazed with astonishment at the anatomy around him. He had never seen anything like it. A brilliantly skewed specimen, so much like the pictures in his grandfather's anatomy books, and yet misrepresented in size and shape, like a twisted dreamlike version. The atmosphere was suffocating, which made it no easier for the panicked young man to breath.

"Mi…Mikasa, what happened?" He asked, eyes wide as saucers. He knew what he thought had happened, but surely it couldn't be right. He must be hallucinating a vision of safety. Perhaps he _was_ dead. But as he gazed at the quickly evaporating ribcage and muscles surrounding him, Armin realized he could never really dream this up.

"Eren saved us," Mikasa answered curtly, as she always spoke. A smile played across her lips before disappearing completely. "That's all we need to know."

"Eren…" Armin said under his breath, looking up, around, everywhere. He had seen his best friend emerge out of the body of a violently aberrant titan before, but his usually open mind had refuted the possibility that he could do it again. It had been a fluke of nature. Perhaps Eren had controlled a titan out of sheer willpower, used its abilities to grow back and arm and a leg. His was an incredible willpower, after all. But this? This strange body around him had fabricated from the very air. Just when he felt he could process no more information, another curiosity caught his eye. Purple flowers had sprouted from the earth between the cobblestone cracks.

Those weren't there before, he thought to himself. Where did they come from?

Eren dropped down from somewhere above. It was difficult to see exactly where he had come from, with all the thick steam that surrounded them, but Armin guessed that he originated at the neck. The boy looked exhausted, but the fire in his eyes was unmistakably pissed-off-and-ready-to-rip-someone-a-new-one-for-it.

"We need to escape. Now," Eren said simply. Mikasa stood, and prepared the handles of her maneuver gear. Armin, on the other hand, continued sitting on the floor, flabbergasted.

"What?" The blonde boy's voice was higher than he meant it to be. "Escape where exactly?" He paused, but he knew the answer already, and his friends knew he knew. "Into titan territory? How much longer do you think we'll last out there than we will in here?" He waited to be laughed at; to get an explanation that made sense. There was surely another option he hadn't thought of.

"Armin," Eren reasoned, throwing his hand toward the direction of their earlier threat, "I didn't just block a fucking cannonball to sit here and get hit with another one. That officer is an unreasonable asshole who just tried to kill two of my closest friends, and we need to go." At his final word, Eren pointed his thumb behind him, directly at the wall. Armin opened his mouth, then closed it again. His head was buzzing with a thousand possibilities that might ensure their survival, and a thousand more reasons that leaving the walls was not one of them, but they were too numerous to process.

"I'll protect you, Armin. I'll protect all of us," Mikasa added.

"Hey," Eren butt in, "I can protect myself."

Mikasa politely ignored him. Now was not the time to bring up the fact that the last time she left him alone, he was devoured by a titan. Whether or not they lived was a nonissue when it came to what was really important: not letting her friend and brother face trouble alone in the first place. "We must leave before the steam clears and they have a clear shot."

"And do what? Waste away until we slip up and get eaten?" Armin fired back. "You're good, Mikasa, but everyone makes mistakes."

"We need to go to my father's basement. You remember the one, Armin. The locked door we always wondered about. I'm sure it will answer a lot of questions for us. Don't ask me to explain how I know, but I know it as certainly as I can make a titan," He motioned toward the body around him, "We can learn how to control it, so we can win against the titans for good."

Mikasa walked over to Armin and held out a hand to him, as she had so many times in the past, "We're not leaving without you." Armin was reminded of the countless times the two had helped him up out of sticky situations with the many dimwitted but strong bullies in Shinganshina. How was it that he had stumbled across such capable and loyal friends?

He stood up on his own. Mikasa's hand fell by her side. The boy never allowed himself to be helped up, but Eren and Mikasa would never stop offering either. He unhooked the handles of his maneuver gear and surveyed his friends with unease. Was he really going to follow them into almost certain death?

"Reload the cannons!" He heard someone shout.

Yes. He was going to follow them. Better a purposeful death than a meaningless one, he reasoned.

"Eren, get on my back," Mikasa instructed. Eren groaned, but did as he was told. Armin smiled in self-deprecation, knowing he could never carry someone up a fifty-meter wall with maneuver gear. He'd probably be the first of the three to die, he realized with heavy dread in his gut, but at least he could help as much as possible in the meantime.

Mikasa shot her grappling hooks into the mist above, and flew off, even with someone on her back, she was quicker than a lightning bolt. Armin positioned himself, pressed down on the triggers, which shot out his grapples, and then pulled down on the clutches that sent him flying off the ground. It had taken him much longer than anyone else to learn the coordination he was practicing. He had been desperately afraid of falling. Yet now, he drew in the grapples, got to his maximum height, shot them out again, and then fell two meters in mid air before they connected with a higher point on the wall. He had to admit, it was exhilarating.

He was about twenty-five meters up the wall when the fog got unsettlingly thin. Mikasa and Eren were about ten meters from the top at that same time. The cannon operators had spotted them and swiveled the cannon as quickly as possible to point straight at the two. Of course they were moving too fast to be hit with a cannon, but then, they heard revolver fire. Armin gulped. He was beginning to think he would not get the chance to be helpful at all before he was shot through with a bullet. He began zigzagging up the wall. The good news was, soldiers were not trained all too well in revolver fire. As Jean had mentioned earlier that day, titans weren't too fazed by bullets, so most of the stationary guard never bothered to become proper marksmen.

Armin glanced up and then stared, petrified at an alarming sight as Eren disentangled himself from Mikasa's back and freefell. It was not a stormy day, yet a bolt of what looked very similar to lightning suddenly sliced through the air, landing straight on Eren. What must have been a fifteen meter class titan was once again fabricated, and a large foot slammed against the wall, only three or four meters below Armin, who fell directly onto it. Once again amazed, he quickly dug his grapples into the calf of his behemoth friend, who was holding onto the top of the wall with a strong, determined grip.

The titan squabbled, his toes digging into the brick. He was able to pull himself up to his shoulders, then his waist, before the cannon fired again. It hit him straight in the ribcage. He yelled ferociously in pain, and crumbled back onto his elbows, but then he was moving upward again, just as stubborn as the human buried below his suboccipital.

The hip on his uninjured side hiked up to sit on the wall. He then threw his legs over the wall, which dizzied Armin at its speed and arch. Eren could have been a kid sitting on a fence, if the scale were not terrifyingly gargantuan. From this distance, they already saw three titans. Attracted by Eren's presence. Eren pushed his hips off the wall, and Armin plummeted what felt like thirty meters all at once. The titan's hand still gripped the top of the wall. Armin watched Mikasa jump off of Eren's shoulder and swing down past him on her maneuver gear to the ground below. Armin followed suit. The cannon fired again, strategically aimed this time at Eren's fingertips. The titan flailed in the air, and fell a little more than twice his body length, before hitting the ground with several cracks. Two of which definitely emanated from his ankles. He then lay, lifeless. Armin and Mikasa flew over to his side. He was on his back, but thankfully the curvature of his neck worked in their favor. Mikasa seemed just a bit hysterical as she pulled out her blades and jabbed into the flesh of his neck, carving in much larger strokes than she might have had to.

"Eren, please be okay!" She yelled. Armin watched, unsure of what to say or do. Had it not been for him, Mikasa and Eren would have been able to get over the wall so easily. It was his curse. He wasn't just unhelpful, he was often the problem.

The carcass began to dissipate, and Eren, fell headfirst toward the ground, pulling taught his tendon-like connections to the titan body. He gasped and opened his eyes quickly as he regained consciousness; he looked at his two friends, healthy and safe, and his expression relaxed. His eyes hazed, and fluttered shut again. He fell limp. Mikasa supported his head and body.

"Armin, help me cut him out!" she said. He drew one of his blades and began carving. Soon, their friend was free, and the blood from the operation stained all three of them. It was slow to evaporate. Armin held two fingers to Eren's neck and sighed with relief as he felt a healthy pulse. But when blood began tricking out of the unconscious boy's nostrils, a worrisome expression resurfaced. All around them they heard gigantic footsteps. Mikasa gave her companion a meaningful look.

"You take Eren to that house over there and hide. Clean him up and get him comfortable for when he wakes up. Try to find food and drink. I'll be quick." Should she be as quick as her words, he would see Mikasa again in no time. Armin frowned and nodded. He did not want to leave her alone, but she was much more capable than he was, especially without him. He did as he was told. Mikasa grappled to a nearby building and sped off toward the footsteps.

Armin looked back up at the wall, but all signs of the commotion they had escaped were gone. The high command seemed to have approached their situation with a "good riddance" attitude.

Mikasa grappled to a nearby chimney and was soon on a rooftop, surveying her enemies. A five meter to the southwest and a five and three meter class in the western direction. There was a 10 meter class much farther away, but he seems preoccupied, wandering in the opposite direction. She tapped her gas cans, which gave off a tinny confirmation that she had about half of each tank still left. She withdrew some blades from her sheathes. This would be easy.

The solitary five meter was closer, so she zipped over to it. It greeted her by slightly opening its mouth in a wicked grin, its eyes bulging and its lips literally splitting its head nearly to its ears. What did Mikasa feel when she faced down a Titan? She felt a calm numbness, and the constant and beautifully resilient beating in her veins. She knew what these creatures did to her, her friends, and her species, but a fight was not the place for emotions. Violence was best accomplished with a clear conscience, and clearing her mind to focus was what she specialized in.

As soon as it noticed her, she tested it for its reflexes by zigzagging slightly in her approach. This titan was normal, dull, slow to turn, at least compared to her. Mikasa ran to toward the Titan's right side, but still stayed a safe distance away. She calculated her angle of approach intuitively and shot her right grapple to its temple. Its expression showed no signs of pain. She jumped in a wide arch around its right shoulder. It was turning toward her, but she had expected this and applied the gas to keep a decent height and angle throughout her turn. She then pulled on the clutch on her right sword with such force that her trajectory shot her up right past the nape of the monster's neck. Her momentum was great enough to easily cut through its callus flesh.

Mikasa flew threw the air in a high curve. The fall toward the next roof could hurt her if she didn't roll it out. She re-sheathed her blades and plummeted toward the red tiles of someone's long forgotten home. Her strong ankles took very little of the impact as she collapsed into a modified roll, careful not to disturb the gear around her waist too roughly. She skidded to a halt back on her feet, expression blank as the titan's carcass all but splattered against the cobble road behind her. "Two to go."


	2. 2 Once Again Nearly Die AND Need Sleep

Attack On Titan Fanfiction

The Road Through Mighty Walls

By Trudyann B. 

Even if they never get there, the journey to the basement was perhaps all the three friends needed. (Begins as Eren blocks cannonfire by becoming a titan. Centers around Armin, with some shifts in POV.)

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I worked a lot harder on this chapter than I did the first one. I would still love to work on it for eternity, but sometimes you have to just free the one you love. Enjoy!  
>ALSO: Please note there is a NEW BONUS CHAPTER stuck on the end of this one. (Updated July 16, 2015)<p>

CHAPTER 2. In Which One of Our Heroes Once Again Nearly Dies.

Armin heard the clatter of flesh in the distance and presumed that Mikasa had completed a third of the battle. He busied himself, quelling his worries, doing exactly as his friend had instructed. The air inside was as saccharine as a garbage dump. There was definitely food in here, but whether any of it was still edible was another matter. The occasional cockroaches, mice or ants were not shy about making their way across the floor and assembling in the tiny kitchenette to Armin's left. In the opposite corner, a table with a bowl of abandoned rotting fruits was against the wall. A chair was pulled out from it, and a sickly brown thing that was probably once a pear sat, half eaten, next to it. Along that same wall was a particularly comfy looking chair with matching footrest. A dusty sofa sat along the adjacent wall, across from the front door. A door next to it most likely lead to some bedrooms and a water closet.

The young man could tell a lot about the family who lived here from their location and the state of their home. For one, they had a lot of money to live so near the second wall, but not enough to live within the second wall. They had traded luxury farther out for simple living here, so they must have been nervous people, some of the few who believed that the Titans could attack, as they did, at any moment. This would probably mean they had a panic room: somewhere to go if they were not allowed into the walls. Armin noticed an area rug in front of the kitchen, and knew immediately where that room was.

After much hauling, he set his friend down on the sofa. The titan blood on both of them was taking care of itself. He stared at the remainder of it for a while, speculating briefly on its composition. Usually, blood would leave sediment as it evaporated, and so much of it would take a long time or a higher temperature. Though there was no doubt that the blood was very hot to the touch, and burned slightly when it came straight from a titan, it was not scalding at the moment, yet it still became one with the air easily, leaving nothing behind. What chemicals could it possible be made of that would allow it to evaporate so evenly? Perhaps it wasn't colloidal, as human blood was? Perhaps it was just one compound or element. Stanger things have happened. He wished he still had his parent's alchemy books, but they were in Shinganshina. The only knowledge he still had was what he and his parents had copied down from their memories after the titans had attacked, and even those writings were inaccessible to him now.

Armin scolded himself. One of the reasons he always got in trouble in the military was that he could not often stay on task. Something as trivial as a flower, the clouds, the arrangement of trees in a forest, or the particularly odd behavior of a certain chipmunk stole his attention all too easily from the grueling but necessary labors of his military training.

Armin was very relieved to see that the plumbing still functioned in this home. He filled three cups of water and then wet a cloth to clean his friend's face. As he approached his friend, his mind once again wandered to the spectacle Eren had made of himself in the past day. Before today, no one had any idea what hope was, and no one could ever guess that some Shinganshina kid from the 104th trainees would be its source. Armin always knew Eren was meant for great things. It was one of the many reasons he was heartbroken when he thought his friend had died saving him. The blonde felt he had nowhere near the potential of either of his childhood friends. Why Eren had bargained his life for Armin was beyond comprehension, to the point where Armin had wanted to smack his deceased friend for his poor strategic choice. Add that to the heartbreak of suddenly losing his closest childhood companion, who had shared his dream of seeing beyond the walls, and defended it even when the whole world looked down on them, and it was no wonder Armin was subject to so much shock, grief and helplessness. Little did he know that Eren's greatest potential would soon be realized.

Yes, this fiery, temperamental, and spirited boy who had stood beside Armin for as long as he could remember, had somehow gained the power to summon a titan body out of thin air and wield it to slay their enemies.

This got him thinking again. If a body like that could just appear so instantaneously. Did that mean that what it was made out of, however much it looked and felt like the flesh and blood of a human, was mostly contrived from elements in the air?

Just touching the wet towel to the young man's face was enough to wake him. Ever focused, he spotted the problem with the scene he had woken to instantaneously.

"Where's Mikasa?" He said quickly, panic evident in his scanning eyes. Another thundering CLUMP of a titan carcass shook the air.

"Does that answer your question?" Armin answered.

"Are we on the other side of the wall?!" Eren stood shakily, and stumbled slightly, cold sweat breaking at his hairline. He held on to Armin's shoulder for support.

"Let me borrow your maneuver gear," He commanded his smaller friend, "Someone has to help Mikasa."

"Eren," Armin protested, "You just turned into a titan twice, and the second time, you fell off the wall as soon as we got to the other side! I know it's hard, but you have to relax and trust her. You're pale and you can hardly stand. You'd be no use out there." His reasoning was solid, but Eren's stubborn nature proved a valiant adversary. He reached for the release straps on Armin's gear, the blonde jumped back in surprise.

"Calm down!" Armin cried out, but Eren continued grabbing for the gear. He was shaky on his feet and seemed a bit green. At this rate, he was going to make himself sick, or fall and hurt himself. It was possible he could black out again. After all, they had no idea what becoming a titan had done to his body. The bloody nose he had gotten suggested some sort of internal stress. Though Eren was woozy, his physical skill was not as suppressed as Armin might have hoped. His grabs were fast and well timed. Armin barely evaded them, and before he knew it, he had dodged right into a wall.

The blonde thought fast as Eren smiled triumphantly, approaching to claim the gear. The table was to his left, the chair and footrest was on his right. How convenient, he thought pleasantly. "Okay, okay! Just back up a minute. Here." The boy pulled on his left release strap as he said this. One side of his gear fell and hit the ground. His friend looked grateful as he turned toward Armin's right and reach for the other release strap.

"Thanks, I knew you'd und—" He could not finish his sentence, for as he spoke, and the release was within a centimeter of his hands, Armin had plowed into Eren's right shoulder, sending the brunette toppling over the footrest and into the armchair. If his face could get any greener, it did. Armin strapped his left side gear back on.

"Eren, you would get yourself killed if you went out there, and then what hope does civilization have without a titan on their side?" He threw his hands toward the titan-shifter, and spoke with a reasonable tone, as if he had just mentioned that Eren was lactose intolerant, and what was he thinking trying to eat ice cream? "If you're really convinced Mikasa needs backup, I'll go help. You need to stay safe until you regain your strength." Eren couldn't get his thoughts together before Armin had already strode out the door with determination in his gait. Then, a single thought pounded through the titan-shifter's dizzy brain. He needed a bucket.

Immediately, Armin's instincts regret his decision. Not more than 10 meters to his left was a 5 meter tall titan. Sure, it was small in comparison to some others, but that only made the fact that it was probably going to eat him that much worse. Armin did the one thing he could always be relied on to do in the face of humanity's greatest adversary. He froze. His mind went a mile a minute, but his feet stayed planted to the ground. The large face towered over him with an expression that seemed to communicate, "I think I'll have this tasty morsel next."

The titan took a step closer. Armin became very aware of his surroundings. Dusk was approaching. There was a slight breeze. The air smelled crisp and invigorating as if winter would arrive early. He could just barely hear the echoing sound of his best friend being sick in a wastebasket. The titan stepped closer. The ground barely crunched under its large footprint. Worry for Eren flashed through the mortal young man's conscious, before redirecting itself back to the fact that his legs weren't working, Mikasa was nowhere to be found and he was going to be dead very shortly.

A hand wrapped around his midriff, pinning his arms to his sides with impossibly strong fingers. Not again, he thought. Death had been imminent for him so much recently. It was almost normal. Most of Armin's mind was now spent beating himself up for not being able to move a single muscle. The rest was calculating how many near-death experiences he had encountered. Armin was now positioned directly over the Titan's wide gullet. He stared down into his fate. It was a familiar scene. He thought about closing his eyes, but once again, his muscles would not listen.

Armin saw a blur of movement to the right of the titan's head, then to its left. As the Titan let go, its victim fell a lot longer than he should have, and landed on a soft and gushing throat, his knees scraping painfully against hard white teeth. The large eyes of the predator were even glassier than usual and Mikasa was standing to the left of the dead giant. The blades in her hands were red with hot blood. She was the picture of poise and efficiency.

"I told you to stay inside and help Eren," She said bluntly. "If we're going to survive out here, we have to trust each other's strengths."

Armin flushed, embers of his own self-loathing reborn for the hundredth time that day, "Your strengths, you mean," he snapped.

She resheathed her swords and looked him dead in the eyes. "We have to trust our own strengths, too."

To Armin, that sounded a lot like bragging. As she walked toward the house where Eren was probably still sick, Armin simmered, glaring daggers at Mikasa's back as she walked toward their makeshift base. His anger was short lived, however, for as soon as his gaze fell to her hands, he noticed that they were shaking with nerve. Mikasa never bragged unless she was acutely stressed, and she absolutely never outwardly showed nerves, no matter how many titans were surrounding her. Mikasa had always cared about Armin, and he knew that, but he had never before seen such intrinsic evidence.

"Mikasa!" As she entered the little cottage, she was stunned by an embrace from her brother. She panicked. She had to get him off her before he noticed her tremors. Her nose wrinkled.

"Eren, you smell like puke." That got him off of her.

"You try turning into a titan and falling off a 50 meter wall and see what it does to you," He defended himself.

Armin walked in the door and had to chuckle quietly at what his friend had just said. Eren turned to him. "And you—" he started, pointing an incriminating finger, "Would not have gotten the best of me if I hadn't been so nauseated!"

Armin grinned. The post-near-death-shivers were leaving him faster than they had the last time his life was threatened. Perhaps with enough practice being the damsel in distress, he would be a pro, he thought morbidly.

"What do you mean he got the best of you?" Mikasa inquired. Eren clammed up and flushed. Mikasa looked to Armin, but he only offered a secretive smile, unwilling to supply Eren any more embarrassment than he had already provided himself. Who, after all, would admit to having been physically beaten by the less-than-intimidating young soldier?

"There will probably be food under the rug," the blonde said to change the subject. His friends both surveyed him with confusion at this. "Oh, c'mon, it's pretty obvious." He pulled up the rug and a mass of cockroaches scattered. Below the dead insects that were left behind was indeed a trap door. When opened, it revealed all sorts of food. Cans and jars of preserved produce and sugared fruits lined the little crawlspace walls, behind which were a few gas canisters fit for 3D maneuver gear.

"Huh, they must have had illegal maneuver gear," Armin thought out loud. Unfortunately for Eren, none of the matching gear could be found. Eren and Armin feasted until they were full, while Mikasa kept watch. They were too tired and shaken by the day's events to say much, except the occasional remark that jerky or cheese would be an appreciated addition, then they took watch to give Mikasa a turn. They packed for later what they could carry. As the sun set, Armin fought his friends for a while before they agreed that he would take the first night watch, since he was the healthiest and least exhausted of the group. Titans would slow to a stop without much sunlight, but the three would be dead if they overslept.

The moonrise that night lit his rooftop vigil in the clear summer air. His company included the rustling leaves, the twittering of crickets, and halted, gargantuan, moonlit bodies.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

It seemed strange to me that the three would go on living without talking about Trost much. Sure, they're very present-day oriented people, but the past surely agitates them. Therefore, I'm adding a nighttime chapter. It's got little to do with the plot, but it wrote itself as a conversation Eren and Armin would have.

CHAPTER 2.5. In Which our Heroes Need Sleep 

"Eren! NO!" The aforementioned boy bolted into the room where Mikasa still slept, wondering how his friends might have been harmed in the middle of the night. Armin was sitting up, in a bad state, threatened only by his own mind. His fingers were laced and knotted in his hair. He was trembling, failing to suppress tears and calm his ragged breath. Eren knew that look. That was how he woke up most nights for years after his mother was killed —no— eaten alive. Mercilessly. By a fucking monster that needed to be eradicated. The green-eyed boy could play tough and say his mother's death only fueled his rage. But in the fog of his dreams, the memories haunted him. Surveying the scene, Eren could tell without much effort what this was about.

"Armin, It's alright. I'm here. I'm alive. I'm on watch just outside," he said, throwing out a few different phrases and hoping one of them would pull his best friend back to reality. The blonde glanced up, a mixture of relief, embarrassment and terror writ across his boyish features. Eren looked out the window of their makeshift resting place. It was still very dark out. He tread across the room and sat on the floor next to Armin.

"Sorry," his friend managed to say. The smaller boy pulled his knees into a hug and continued to tremble, but as he spoke, his breathe and voice calmed and smoothed out. "Don't worry about me. I just had another shitty dream. Nothing to worry about."

"Usually they're just bad dreams," Eren recalled aloud, "So this one must have downright blown for _you_ to use that language." The corners of Armin's mouth twitched upward. Eren smiled, still searching for a way to amend his friend's mood.

"I'm sorry about what happened in Trost," he started, but Armin had already started shaking his head.

"Don't you dare say you're sorry," was the response, "Your leg was half bitten off and you still saved me, the only perfectly uninjured person in our whole team, from being eaten alive because I was too scared to move or help or be of any use." He choked up at his own words. The memories were too much to bear, but he kept going. "I've gone over what happened a thousand times in my head. Every second my life wasn't in danger since then, I would think up another way I could have saved you in time. So many things I could have done and I just—"

"Armin." Eren dropped a heavy hand on the other boy's shoulder. "Snap out of it." The smaller boy closed his mouth and nodded, but his wide blue eyes reflected his inability to follow the order, so Eren continued, his eyebrows furrowed passionately, "Move on. It's in the past now. There are a million ways thousands of soldiers could save their friends, but sometimes they don't. I was lucky I could save you. You were lucky I survived. We lived and learned, okay? Not many people have the chance to stare death in the face like we did and come out on top!"

The words washed over Armin. Eren was nearly yelling at the boy, but that was just the way Eren talked when he cared, so the blonde didn't take it personally. Would this speech help stop the night terrors? Not at all. But perhaps they could shove away some regret on his awakening.

"You're right," Armin shivered, "I just—I'm so sorry." Eren opened his mouth in protest, but Armin shushed him with a hand. "I have to say it," He continued, "then I'll stop." The brunette settled down, accepting the explanation.

"I will never let you or Mikasa down again. If it is at all within my capabilities, I will always save you. You're right. I'm lucky I have some semblance of a chance to atone for my mistakes." The boy said all of this quietly, and looked at the floor as he did so. Moonlight heart-to-hearts were neither of the boy's forte, though they did stay up talking of science and the outside world when they were young.

"In that case, your job just got easier," Eren pointed out, trying to lighten the mood, "I don't even know if I can die anymore!" But rather than take the bait, the blonde frowned thoughtfully.

"I wonder if that's true. I'm guessing if you were injured in a lethal location with enough force, you wouldn't heal yourself in time," he thought out loud.

"Way to be positive!" Eren joked, patting him on the back. Armin smiled at that.

"Sorry," the boy said again, before voicing his next thought, "But you've gotten scrapes before and taken days to recover. Did you have any idea that you could turn into a titan before? I mean you'd tell Mikasa and me, wouldn't you? Plus, our team wouldn't have died if you'd known you could—" He was thinking out loud at this point.

"No, Armin. Of course I had no idea. I suppose I have to thank you. If I hadn't saved you, I never would have found out what I could do." The empty logic fell flat for his skeptical friend, and was appropriately ignored.

"How do you think you acquired that kind of power, then? Most people who are eaten by titans don't become fighting goliaths because they want to."

Eren grasped at the key at his neck and stewed. How had he gotten these two things: The key and the ability to become a titan? Memories of a horrid night flooded his mind. For a moment he remembered vividly every detail of his struggle against his father, who held him down amongst dirt and detritus, a syringe menacingly dripping above. Eren felt betrayal, confusion, and fear. His father said something very authoritatively, but the specifics slid through the cracks of his consciousness once again, into less and less certainty, lost and begging for replacement. Some facts remained clear. His father had left him the day Shinganshina had fallen with a key around his neck, and had not come back. His father had left him and Mikasa with nothing. They were orphans for all he helped. But somehow, one morning, Eren had a key around his neck.

"Eren," a voice broke through his thoughts, "You have that murderous look in your eyes again."

The brunette boy looked up at his friend unapologetically. "It's my fucking dad. It's just—I think he's part of this. I know I never had the basement key. Yet one day I woke up with a sore arm like I'd just gotten the plague vaccine, and a key around my neck, and I just took it for granted, like I was accepting a fact in a dream. But, that could have something to do with it, right?" He paused, "but if our dad visited me, then why wouldn't he tell me anything? Or even come back and help Mikasa and I grow up? How did he just leave us?! And why, of all the fucking stupid things to do in the world, did he decide to give his son weird fucking titan powers and then keep the basement a secret?!"

"Do you even know for sure that it was your dad? I don't know, but if he could really give you titan powers, he must have chosen to do so for a good reason. He's always been secretive, but Dr. Jeager's no idiot," Armin pointed out, "It's uncharacteristic of him to make unreasonable decis— OW!" Eren had punched him in the shoulder. Not hard, but certainly not lightly.

"Goddamnit, would you stop defending my dad!? Why do you have to justify the other person every time I get angry?"

"I'm not justifying, I'm just explaining!" Armin retorted, cradling his arm with his other palm.

"And you're so defensive and serious all the time!"

"I'm not being—" Armin started, but he cut himself off, realizing his friend was relaxed and not actually the slightest bit upset with him. It had seemed like ages since they'd teased one another like normal friends, when in reality it had probably only been one hellish day. He grinned sheepishly. "Look who's talking," he tried throwing a punch back at Eren, but ended up hurting his own wrist. He tried not to flinch, but the other boy could tell.

"You're hopeless. I've been trying to teach you self defense since we were eight."

"I wasn't concentrating." The smaller boy knew how stupid he sounded, but he didn't care. His tears were drying up, and maybe life wasn't quite as close to eternal torment as he'd thought.

"Do you really think there's a good enough reason to keep whatever he knows about the titans a secret?" Eren asked after some thought. His mind rejected the idea with its usual fiery passion, but he knew that Armin was often right about these sorts of things.

The blonde looked to the floor. "At least something he deemed important enough, I would guess."

"What could that reason be?" Eren was at a complete loss. Such a reason was impossible to imagine. If you had a way of turning people into titan-fighting-titans, why wouldn't you save the human race with it? He grit his teeth angrily. A look at his friend confirmed his own uncertainty.

"I have no idea," the blonde boy admitted. A long pause followed; gears turned in each boy's head, to no avail. Eren gave up first, and settled for a more concrete topic. He could hardly bring himself to ask about his time as a titan, for fear that he had hurt someone. His friends would tell him, right?

"I can't remember much from back then. What did I do? I didn't hurt anyone, did I?"

"Oh, no," Armin answered, "Actually, you saved a lot of lives by attacking the titans around the supply tower so we all made it out okay."

A fifty-kilogram weight lifted off Eren's shoulders. That was great news. He wished he could remember what it was like. But all he could recall was the hazy feeling of absolute hatred: a far away dream of dampening the constant torment in his soul with the satisfaction of revenge. "Awesome. Hey, you would tell me if I hurt someone, right?"

Armin knew he wouldn't, unless it was of dire importance, he would allow his friend the mercy of not knowing. He hoped he would never have to make that call. After this train of thought flew through his mind, the boy knew exactly how to reply, "Of course I'd tell you."

Satiated, Eren allowed himself to relax. "Okay cool. Hey, what did I look like? Was I gross like the other titans?"

Armin smiled, "Nah, you actually look pretty cool."

"Really? Like how cool? Like Commander Erwin cool or like Captain Levi cool?" Eren joked. Armin chuckled before getting hit with an unidentified flying food item.

"Ow!"

"Neither of you will look identifiable, much less cool if you don't let me get some goddamn sleep," Mikasa grumbled.

"Why me?" The smaller boy complained, now nursing two bruises. Eren laughed before a potato to his head interrupted him.

"GAH! Mikasa!" Armin burst into fits of laughter. The once-slumbering beast showed no signs that she had thrown anything. To the outside observer, she was as peaceful as a dozing dove, but the boys knew better.

"I'd better go back on watch," Eren said with fake resentment, getting up and tossing the potato back at Mikasa, who snarled, but made no further threats. There was no doubt her eventual vengeance would be sweet.

"No, I'll go," The blonde boy stood, his temporary good humor fading. "I don't think I'll be able to sleep anymore anyway." Eren nodded. He felt awful for what his friend had been put through, and wished there was a way to spare him from his regret, but nothing he could say would lessen the memory's bite, except maybe…

"Goodnight," Armin said, heading for the door. Eren's left hand grabbed the smaller boy's right wrist before he could get there. Blue eyes met green once again.

"What is it?"

"I meant what I said back then," Eren declared, determination sparkling in his eyes, "we will see the outside world someday."


	3. 3 Sent Airborne

Attack On Titan Fanfiction

The Road Through Mighty Walls

By Trudyann B. 

Even if they never get there, the journey to the basement was perhaps all the three friends needed. (Begins as Eren blocks cannonfire by becoming a titan. Centers around Armin, with some shifts in POV.)

CHAPTER 3. In Which Our Heroes are Sent Airborne.

It was well known that the Scouting Legion mortality rates were shockingly dismal. Over a third died on a good expedition. Therefore, if that statistical average held true, one of them would die and the other would be an amputee of some sort. The best they could hope for was that the amputee was Eren, who could apparently grow back a limb like a tree grew a new leaf. However, the three friends soon noticed that not many titans were actually noticing them at all, and so it seemed there was, in fact, greater safety in lack of numbers.

They set out toward Wall Maria on foot, to save their dismal gas supply, and secretly to save Eren the humiliation of having to tag along on someone's back again.

"We'll have to pass a gas supply tower. I know of one that's not too out of our way, and if we're lucky, we can find some maneuver gear for Eren," Mikasa had said.

"It would also be useful to find horses to carry us and our supplies," Armin added, readjusting the weight of his knapsack on his shoulder. The friends agreed it was a long shot, but that horses would make this trip very much faster. And so, they kept their senses keen for the sight, sound or smell of a mare.

Unfortunately, this was not so easy. Strategically, they had mostly been choosing alleyways for paths, as their enemies could not see, nor smell, humans as easily among rats, cats, garbage and narrow walls. They were quiet for the rest of the morning, listening to make sure they had not been spotted. It was Eren who broke the silence, when the sun was nearly at its zenith. His cooped up thoughts bubbled out of his mouth.

"Y'know, I could just turn into a titan and run out of here with you guys on my shoulders. We'd get there so much quicker! Plus I could bash a few airheads on my way out!"

Armin rolled his eyes, knowing this conversation had been imminent, "Eren, you don't remember how we found you, but I do. The titans had swarmed you like… like—"

"Flies to poop?" Mikasa provided.

"Yeah, and thanks for the imagery on that one," Armin continued, "It was very difficult for you to fight them all off. You were exhausted and incapacitated by the end of it. Now imagine all the titans in Trost right now, and all the titans within wall Maria, including aberrants, looking up to find a hulking buffet running past them. Do you really think you could handle that?"

Eren was silent for a minute, digesting that information. "Maybe," he finally answered under his breath, but it was in a tone that had admitted slight improbability. His two friends smiled at his spirit. They were glad to have him back.

The trio came to the mouth of an alley. Mikasa poked her head out and scanned the wide street. After she gave them the okay, they made a mad dash into another alleyway. A spooked cat jumped away from them, verbalizing the inconvenience they'd caused him with a loud mew.

After they'd settled into their usual rhythm again, Eren piped up, "Why do you think they sensed I was different from any other titan?"

"Maybe they smelled your body odor?" Mikasa joked dryly. Armin acknowledged her with a smirk. She didn't speak much, but whenever she did, it was usually either economical or shockingly strange. Eren, quite maturely, stuck out his tongue at her.

"What do you think, Armin?" The taller boy asked.

The blonde shook his head. "Me? I don't know."

"Yeah, but you always have theories," Eren responded. Armin looked at the ground in acknowledgement. When he next spoke, he started softly and quickly, but his voice became stronger as the conversation progressed.

"Well, we've noticed that Titan's rarely recognize the actions of other titans, so it probably wasn't your behavior that alerted them. I think it may have something to do with the chemical composition of titans."

"How do you figure?" Eren asked. Armin wasn't sure if he was actually curious or if he was just bored, but Mikasa looked at him with genuine interest, so he continued.

"Well, any reports of titan body parts describe them as being incredibly light but strong, and there's no arguing that when you begin to command a Titan body, it formulates its material from thin air. Does it feel like it's growing from you or coming toward you?"

Eren furrowed his eybrows in recollection. "I can't remember very well. I'm usually focusing on my motive," he admitted, absentmindedly surveying his perfectly scarless hand. "But I guess it sorta feels like something's condensing around me."

"I thought so," Armin said. "Perhaps, whatever a titan is made of, it might be a superheated, crystallized form of certain elements in the air. But something has to start that process, and flood that giant body with the energy to support it from a fairly central point." He touched the nape of his own neck as he said this. "Perhaps they can sense that your energy is different from theirs? Or maybe when you're controlling it, you put some part of your own physiology into it." He was silent for a moment, before again disclaiming, "I don't know." If he were honest with himself, it was pure speculation. What did he know about the natural laws? Only what he had been told; only what those before him had theorized.

"That makes sense," Mikasa said, after having thought it over.

Armin glanced at her. She was looking straight ahead, with her same unquestionable focus on the task at hand, her chin held centimeters above her omnipresent red scarf. He beamed. It was nice to know that he wasn't completely crazy, at least.

They had just reached the mouth of another alley. Mikasa once again peered around the corner, but pulled it back quickly this time. One terrible word exited her, in the flat tone of someone inconvenienced by the lack of milk at the market.

"Aberrant."

"Shit," Eren responded, his entire squad's death and the pain of his own leg being bitten off flickered through his mind accompanied by mo small amount of grief. His stomach churned sickeningly. Eren brought his hand to his mouth. "Let me take him."

Armin pulled his friend's arm down. "What kind is it, Mikasa?" he asked.

"It's crawling on all fours, probably 4 meter class, unusually focused look in its eyes. It's looking right where we are from about 20 meters away." she reported. Armin exhaled, partially in confirmation, partially to quell his nerves. It came out shaky. He had a promise to keep. He tapped his gas cans. They were nearly full.

"Do you have enough gas?" The boy asked. Mikasa nodded. Armin stared at his feet. "I have an idea, but it's not great." He made eye contact with his friends, thinking they would start talking over him at any point, but their steely gazes were concentrated on him.

"Right, uhm, I would book it down the center of the street and grab it's attention. Mikasa, could then land on it's back as soon as possible and kill it. Eren, if Mikasa misses, then you'd back her up. But that's plan Z."

"Sounds good," Mikasa replied.

"You could be dead by then!" Eren protested. "Mikasa, are you really going along with this?"

The dark haired girl was already preparing her gear and visualizing victory. It would have to be impossible for her to fail. "It's a good plan. Armin can do it, but he needs to be careful," she replied, glancing sidelong at her blonde friend with meaning.

Armin was startled by her conviction. "Right," his voice wavered. He took off his knapsack and left it on the ground. He then closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. He could not afford to freeze again. He tightened all his muscles, and then let them go, testing them for obedience. He took a deep lungful of air.

Before he could lose his nerve, he ran out into the middle of the street.

The titan instantly saw him. Its expression was twisted and venomous, brows permanently stuck downward. It's unnaturally large mouth showed way too many sharp teeth for Armin's comfort. Looking over into the alley, Mikasa was already almost on the roof. Armin turned and ran for his life. He jumped, shooting his maneuver gear and pulling upward. As his feet left the ground, he applied as much gas backward as possible.

Mikasa waited for the behemoth to nearly pass her, and judging its speed, jumped from the rooftop to slay the enemy. However, luck was not on her side, and the titan decided at that moment to bound forward, as a dog would chasing a toy that was moving too fast to canter behind.

She landed on the ground and cursed in her mind, already grappling to some houses a few blocks in front of her and lifting off the ground in hot pursuit.

Meanwhile, Armin shot upward at an alarmingly high speed, barely missing his predator's jaws. His heart jumped into his throat at the close call and he almost didn't bring his grapples back in time. Everything was too fast. He remembered running down a hill as a child and suddenly realizing that if his feet couldn't keep up, his face would keep going. That's what this felt like, except with certain death at the end. He was already above most rooftops, and was listening with amazing discomfort to the stamping of four titan limbs against the ground all too close behind him. His body threatened to freeze once more, but he realized he could keep himself moving; perhaps because he was slightly more afraid of becoming a meaningless blonde omelet on the ground than the inevitable sacrifice to the titans for which he was already mentally prepared. When he shot his grapples again, he aimed for the highest stable part of the rooftops three blocks ahead. He arched down across his shortening wires.

Behind him, though he didn't know it, Mikasa was moving even faster and higher than either of them. She spotted a good time in her trajectory to shoot toward the titan, but then notices, as Armin attempted another high arch through the air, that the aberrant had slowed, and was preparing to pounce. She cursed under her breath, and curved downward. This would take a lot greater precision than she had anticipated. On her swing back upward, she pulled back her grapples later than she usually would and applied great amounts of gas. She soared into the skies at around the same time as the creature in front of her, but went just a little higher.

Armin, you're going to have to do something extraordinary for me to get there in time, Mikasa thought to herself, and an unwelcome butterfly entered her stomach at the sight before her. One of her closest friends was once again an ever-lessening distance from the mouth of a titan. Mikasa shot toward the center of the back of its skull, and pulled forward. She would cut off its head if it meant saving her friend from the titan's mouth.

Just don't get bitten, she thought.

Something wasn't right, Armin thought, trying to spot places to land another grapple. He quickly realized that his pursuer was no longer making a sound. He turned his head and shifted his eyes just in time to see the permanently angry face no more than eight meters away. His insides threatened to up and leave him altogether. His muscles tensed, once again ready to give up. However, before they got the chance, a crazy, probably stupid idea popped into his brain. He turned toward the titan in mid air, shot a grapple straight toward its forehead, threw his feet forward, and pulled.

His feet landed on either side of the titan's nose. The confused monster crossed its eyes and threw its head back, trying to shake him into its mouth as they plummeted from the troposphere. Armin's left foot slipped, but he stayed upright. He didn't see Mikasa come in for the kill, but he could tell when it happened, because the thing went limp and began to fall like a dead duck. Armin pulled away from its forehead, and kicked back around, focusing on how to land safely on the quickly approaching earth. When Armin safely reached the street, the blonde turned to see his friend land a few meters away. Her head was down and her shoulders were shaking. No doubt, this puzzled him. If he didn't know her any better, he would have guessed she was crying. But Mikasa didn't cry about anything, let alone victory. She then threw back her head, and her hair cleared away from her face. Armin saw a genuine smile grace her face and a few giggles exited her mouth before she could calm herself.

"What the hell was that?!" she asked with great amusement.


	4. 4 Face a Storm

Attack On Titan Fanfiction

The Road Through Mighty Walls

By Trudyann B. 

Even if they never get there, the journey to the basement was perhaps all the three friends needed. (Begins as Eren blocks cannonfire by becoming a titan. Centers around Armin, with some shifts in POV.)

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I'm back on track with a shiny new plot, and it's looking like this will be a fun ride. Here's chapter 4 complete with two Armin flashbacks! Woot!

CHAPTER 4. In Which Our Heroes Face a Storm

Something had been bothering Armin about his titan theory. According to his grandfather's books, aerial elements such as Nitrogen and Oxygen would never solidify at normal temperatures, because they preferred to bounce around by themselves. Not even water vapor would condense into ice unless it was much cooler. Not superheated like in a titan, cooler. He vividly recalled the precious lessons of his youth:

"I wanna see the outside world too, Grandpa!" A blue-eyed child, scoffed at the indignity of it all. "Why won't mom and dad take me with them?"

Armin's grandfather sighed, mulling over his precious answer. He never spoke before he knew exactly what he was going to say, which often took a great while. "But Armin, everything about the outside world is right in front of you," he replied after serious thought.

"What do you mean?" The boy was, fortunately, easily distracted from emotional turmoil by new ideas.

"We are made of the same stuff as the things around us," his grandfather explained, "and can experience everything the world has to offer right here. I read about it in a very secret book." That caught the boy's attention. It was not long before the two were enjoying their favorite hobby together, sifting through dusty Arlert heirlooms in the secret room in their cottage, below the rug and under the floorboards. Candles lit the pages, though not quite as eagerly as the gazes of those who read them.

"Why are these letters arranged in boxes like this?"

"This is one of my favorite pages," His grandfather responded airily. Moments of contented silence followed, but the little boy grew impatient.

"Why?" Armin provoked.

"Oh, yes. It's actually quite remarkable. At some point, someone believed that everything in the world could be made of just a handful of building blocks, called elements," the man said, "and here's a list of them."

"Is it true?" the boy inquired.

"No one really knows, but lots of people wrote about experiments they conducted where it seems to come true." He leafed through the first half of the book, and Armin made a mental note to read it all later. "Of course that's not even the best part! Whoever wrote this book, also wrote a lot of facts about each of these little elements. Like these," He pointed to a box on the left, and four on the right, "Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus. They're the building blocks of life! We're made of them, livestock, trees, and the wheat in fields are all made of them." Armin remembered when his mother first told him that all plants were alive. He was stunned and asked her very urgently if trees could hear him when he talked. He looked at his hands.

"I don't see boxes," he observed.

"That's because they're too small to see."

"Are Titans made of them, too?" Armin asked soberly.

"According to this book, they very well may be."

Satisfied with that answer, Armin, looked back at the building blocks on the page, and then the candle that lit it. "What's in fire?" He couldn't wait to tell Eren and Mikasa what he had learned.

Long dismissed by Mikasa and Eren as a fun theory, the elements inspired Armin to this day. If they were true, then titans would be made of them too, and titans seemed nearly indestructible, but what they were made of couldn't possibly be. He pondered this long and hard as he walked through the late night with his friends. They were more than halfway to wall Maria and, graciously, the worst that happened to them the previous day after taking down that aberrant had been a 3 meter titan in an alleyway, followed by the joyful discovery of some rare beef jerky in a cellar, where they napped that evening. Back out by midnight, the three were eager to travel while the titans could not bother them. They lost track of time as the clouds swept overhead that night. The stars and moon were barely ever visible, and so even with developed night vision, they could not see much. What they wouldn't do for a torch. It was a peaceful, humid summer night. Crickets buzzed and they could even hear the occasional bat twitter above them. Later in the night, it started to drizzle. The sky grumbled with the sound of something natural and powerful.

"Listen," Mikasa whispered to the others urgently. The boys heard nothing peculiar and conveyed their confusion with furrowed brows.

"A thuderstorm's coming?" Eren observed, not understanding the significance.

"Birds are calling," the girl clarified. Her two companions remained confused. "Morning's coming. We shouldn't be out—"

A hazy blue burst of dawn flooded over the horizon from the east and a titan wasted no time in landing its large palms just meters from the three. Its face hovered above them for only moments before falling toward them.

"Go!" Mikasa shouted, her gear was already in her hands and her arms were wrapped around Eren. She shot off to the Titan's right. Armin took a bit longer, but managed to dodge just in time. The Titan paused with its face just a meter from the ground. It seemed to already be aware its prey had escaped. It looked up.

"It's fast," Mikasa observed. The titan quickly focused on them again. "And sharp." They headed for a nearby rooftop, but the height advantage left them in the sights of another titan behind the advancing one and separated by a building. Rain pattered on the roof tiles beside them, an irregular war drum that got steadier and heavier with every beat of their anxious hearts.

"Can I _please _take care of those assholes?!" Eren pleaded of his friends.

"No. Stay here." Mikasa answered. She was already running to the right and soon grappled to a nearby chimney. Using it as a pivot point, she dove toward the ground like a raindrop, then defiantly back up into the air, past the first titan's ear. She grappled to the second one's collarbone as she passed it and curved around, catching its neck with her blades. She seemed content to follow it to the ground, but at the last minute, tried to pull her grapples away from the slain beast and jump off. It was too late. She plummeted past Armin and Eren's line of vision, behind the building. The first titan kept moving toward them, eyes fixed, mouth grimacing.

"Armin, we have to kill this big one!" Eren shouted.

Armin's knees locked. "That's not even the worst of the problem! Judging by Mikasa's hesitation to fall, there are at least two smaller titans on the other side of that building, or possibly an abnormal one."

"Shit." Eren said, "I'll help."

"No! Please, Eren, that'll only bring more in!"

"So you want Mikasa to di—" Once again, Eren felt the full force of the little blonde push him to the side. Armin's maneuver gear pulled them out of harm's way as the titan hunting them flailed its arms backward, around, and over its head and then down toward the roof. As soon as they were safe again, Eren continued protesting, sick of his friends having to drag him around. Lightning struck violently and very close to them, hardly noticed.

"I can help, damnit! I'm not some useless runt! We—"

"Well I am!" Armin yelled back, startling his friend. "And I can't kill a titan! I'm awful at it, and this angle sucks! You know what I don't want, is more titans to remind me how much I can't kill them! If you wanna become a titan, go ahead, but it'll spell the end for us and you know it!"

Eren's jaw closed and set, processing the verbal assault. And then, auspiciously, he nodded. "We need to make sure Mikasa's alright." More thunder.

Armin nodded back. They clumsily swung toward the ground, Eren jumped off of his friend as soon as he could, but the blonde scraped his knees on the cobblestone all the same. They ran through an alley too tight for the titan pursuing them. The rain was slowing to a stop now, but the sky still threatened them with thunder. They looked around panicked for Mikasa, but they shouldn't have worried. She was grappled with poise to a wall, two titan carcasses sizzled and steamed in the rain on her left, and a particularly lively five meter was scrambling for her feet, which were just a meter out of its reach. She launched herself off of the wall, flipped her feet over her head, and shot toward the titan, pulling into it and killing it with ease.

"Mikasa!" Eren yelled after her when she had dismounted from her prey. The girl shifted her head in the direction of his voice. Her eyes widended.

"Watch out!" She yelled back through the crashing sound of another nearby lightning bolt. They whirled around. The other titan had already somehow found its way to them. It was approaching them and would soon throw its hands backward for another of its strange flailing grabs.

Armin saw a red scarf out of the corner of his eye. "Mikasa, NO!" But it was too late. One of the titan's arm hit her square on the left side. She spiraled in the air. Armin jetted through the titan's legs after her, but it was no use catching her from this angle. His stomach plummeted as he watched his friend do much the same.

He didn't even notice himself falling at first until he was nearly dead himself. He shot his maneuver gear and sloppily hit the ground and tumbled slightly. Already skinned knees, then hips then lanky elbows and shoulders met the unforgiving pavement. Thunder rumbled. The blonde looked up. Eren appeared as if he had tried to get away on foot, but he was pinned by the mad titan's grasp. His legs looked to be crushed between the street and its hand. The brunette boy was cursing like a sailor. By all accounts he should have blacked out, but Eren didn't give so easily.

"Try to eat me, you fucking piece of shit, and see what happens to your ass! Goddamn it that hurts fucking fuck! Rot in hell, you cocksucker!"

And that was when the stomach which had once fallen in his gut wanted to push itself right up into Armin's throat. He didn't want to look backward and see Mikasa lying there on the road, banged up and maybe even dead. He didn't want to see Eren get eaten again, or his titan form pulverized by an enemy onslaught while Armin watched and waited for some 3 meter to gobble him up as well. Lightning struck again behind him and Armin instinctively looked for it. A market stall, having been dry underneath its awning, had burst into flame from a lightning strike just behind—

Mikasa was kneeling a few meters away from the embers. She was trying to stand, but kept falling over, still partially attached to the walls on which she had stopped herself. She was either dizzy, injured or both. She was too weak to fight but persevered because somebody had to. She raised her head, face covered in hair, and her eyes met his. "Save him!" She yelled.

As the titan had just picked up a screaming and writhing, mangled Eren, its forgotten opponent surveyed the situation, with dread and a slightly dangerous amount of hope.

His time in the military academy came back to him, weeks and weeks of work were recalled in a single moment, as Armin stood, and walked to a spot he was familiar with.

Years ago, having had no success that day in mock titan killing exercises, Armin waited until nightfall and snuck out into the training grounds. He was quite near the bottom of the class in this skill, and he would pay dearly if he were unable to accomplish this task in the final.

The forest was nearly black, with only a quarter moon filtering through the trees. The night was cool and invigorating. Armin checked his gear one last time as he sized up the cutout he was after. In his head, he was trying to calculate the perfect three-dimensional angle, but he wondered if it would really help his muscles perform anyway. They never listened to his brain. At twenty meters away, he positioned himself at a thirty-degree angle, and plunged a grapple into its mock occipital. Trying not to think, Armin lunged forward, pulling his clutch in order to speed toward the target. It came up fast, too fast for him to contemplate, and his blades clanged off the edge of the wood, not penetrating anything, let alone something important. Keeping one grapple in place, he shot another toward a nearby tree and fell to the edge of the wire's triangular slack. The leather straps around his waist and the arches of his feet dug painfully into his skin, which was not yet used to such large falls. He lowered himself to the ground in defeat. This would be a long night: one of many to come. By its completion, the only thing he had become sufficient at was remembering where he started. A week of very little sleep later, and he could fail to cut the titan's neck, and recover gracefully afterward. Luckily, he still had six months until the final.

Presently, he planted his feet. This was the angle he had practiced most, and the height he knew well as analogous to the mock titan he worked so hard to carve up. His friends were in danger, and he had a strategic advantage. Before he had even decided to go, a grapple was buried in the beast's cranial tissue. He pulled, trusting his muscle memory, and for once, letting his mind go blank as he pulled his blades back over his right shoulder.

The problem came when, having perfectly pulled back his blades, ready to use his body mechanics to their full advantage, he thought. He thought about what it would feel like to slice through an actual titan. He thought of how his friends would react to his achievement, how maybe he wasn't as useless as he thought. He thought about failing and letting down the two people for which he cared most. Thinking was his downfall. His joints froze in the fear of possibility. He dug his blades halfway through the back of the titan's neck before sticking like a fly to glue. Armin's target was indeed distracted. It threw back its head in frustration, leaving Armin hanging relatively upside down, feet on its neck, and swords jammed in its most sensitive region.

It's going to end like this. The boy thought to himself, eyes wide with regret, hands holding on for dear life as his enemy pulled his head up again and reached behind him. It would pull the sad excuse for a soldier off the back of its neck, like the minor nuisance he was, and devour him.

"Fucking hell, Armin, is it time for plan Z yet?!" Eren yelled, hanging, forgotten, from the titan's other hand.

No. The blonde thought. He stopped himself from spiraling into his usual self-loathing and surveyed the situation for an armchair-like advantage. He thought back to his mother's book about animals said that every creature, from snail to human would react predictably to certain stimuli. The titan was presumably getting used to the pain, which allowed it to search for the source. A behavior like this might be reset with a noxious stimulus such as twisting a blade?

The titan's head fell backward again in agony and Armin was once again hanging from his gear handles. Now for leverage. He shot his grapples to a nearby wall and gripped tight, allowing the sudden thrust of the taught wires to do the majority of the work. Blades cut through flesh once again, and blood gushed out, covering the now free soldier, who rushed toward the wall, and stopped himself against it with his feet. He unhitched, and his feet hit the ground solidly at about the same time as his prey's head. Never in his life had Armin truly believed that he was capable of killing a titan.

Drenched from the rain and caked in boiling hot blood, Armin's attention immediately shifted toward his friends. Eren had managed to fall onto the titan by grabbing onto its hand while it died. Mikasa had managed to stand and was walking carefully toward Eren.

The familiar burning sensation of decomposing titan surrounded them as they helped Eren off of the titan. The brunette himself seemed to be letting off similar aerial elements as his legs began to miraculously heal themselves. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you both," Mikasa said. They could both tell that she was incredibly upset with herself. "I'll be less reckless next time."

"It was my fault, Mikasa." Armin said quickly. "I should have told you about its strange behavior."

Mikasa looked up at the blonde. "Good job killing it." She said it as if he had figured out how to spread peanut butter, but Armin knew how much it meant from her.

Armin blushed, embarrassed by his handiwork, or lack thereof. "Oh God, it was clumsy as hell. I don't—"

"No offense," Eren cut him off, "but I was pretty sure I was gonna get to kill a titan before you."

Armin laughed, caught off guard. "Not counting the fifty or so you've punched and stomped to death!" he replied.

Eren smiled as well, "Damn, I wish I remembered that."

The air was once again pleasantly still as the rain slowed to a drizzle once more. The storm had passed, and the thunder was rumbling farther away from them. All they could hear were distant footsteps, the birds, and the crackling of fire behind them. Armin watched with wonder as his friend's once unrecognizable legs slowly patched themselves back together. What he wouldn't give to know how it worked.

"Are you alright?" Mikasa asked Armin, noticing for the first time his heavily blood stained elbows, hips and knees. He smiled back at her. No he was not alright. Everything hurt like a bitch.

"My legs weren't crushed," was his short reply. "You feeling okay?"

"I'll be fine," said Mikasa.

The nearest alleyway was beyond the burning market stalls, and so they supported their regenerating friend and made their way toward it. Mikasa seemed to be getting steadier with every step. It seemed, thank goodness, that her dizziness had only been temporary, suggesting that whatever injury she sustained was not severe. Beside the flames, something caught the smaller boy's attention. He stopped walking.

"It's hot," he said aloud, to no one but himself.

"No shit, really?" Eren joked, but Armin wasn't listening.

"I'm sorry, I need to get closer," the boy said. His friends, slightly curious and a bit worried for Armin's mental health, hobbled toward the flame with him. It was an inferno. Armin quickly passed his hand through a tongue and then stared at his hot and stinging palm.

"Are you crazy?" Eren exclaimed.

"What is it?" Mikasa asked impatiently. The longer they were out in the open, the worse.

The boy looked up at his friends. The memory of titan's blood was fresh on his skin, and this feeling was contradictory.

"Doesn't it feel different?" he prompted them. He was just as afraid he had gone off the deep end as Mikasa and Eren were. He needed them to notice. "Doesn't it feel different from a titan's blood, I mean? Eren, Mikasa, you should both know better than anyone." Revelation flickered in his companions' eyes. They stared at him, then at each other.

"It burns," Eren said.

"They both burn," Mikasa said.

"But not in the same way," Armin finished their thoughts, glad they might just be catching on. They walked over to the nearest titan carcass and touched it. Compared to the fire, it was cool. In fact, it was colder than snow.

Mikasa puzzled over the feeling, so sure it was wrong. "It can't be."


	5. 5 Make Less Discoveries than Inquiries

Attack On Titan Fanfiction

The Road Through Mighty Walls

By Trudyann B. 

Even if they never get there, the journey to the basement was perhaps all the three friends needed. (Begins as Eren blocks cannonfire by becoming a titan. Centers around Armin, with some shifts in POV.)

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Thank you for your thoughtful reviews! To answer some concerns, I am an Armin lover through and through, as I have previously warned. But I also realize that a good writer spends time on more than one character. Armin is my protagonist, and I've built this story to highlight his strengths (and throw in bunches of action, apparently.) Plus, I love writing his point of view. However, I am endeavoring to be just a slight bit more balanced. Yes. Good writer. What I wanna be. Right.

CHAPTER 5. In Which Our Heroes Make Less Discoveries than Inquiries

Titan temperature was the topic of choice for the soaking wet teenagers for much of the afternoon. As the sun peaked out from the gloomy cloud cover, visible rays shot down from the sky, bathing select derelict buildings in a light yellow glow. The sunbeams played across alleys, and hit the trekking three at chance intervals. Their confused, squinting faces showed little care toward whether or not they were illuminated, as all their attention was buzzing inside their minds.

"Why would they lie to us in training? Who authorized that?" Eren grumbled. Their lecturers had sounded like they knew everything there was to know.

"I suppose we don't know the intentions of people in authority. We can't assume that protecting us from Titans is all they do," The shorter boy replied meekly.

"But wouldn't the Survey Corps say something? They're dedicated to finding out about the titans and how to defeat them! Is temperature so insignificant?"

"I can't think of any way that knowledge could help, but equally, I can't think of any good reason to lie about it," Armin thought aloud.

"Maybe they're idiots and wanted to sound like they knew what they were talking about," Mikasa remarked.

Armin pondered this option, "But there are a lot of things we do know about titans. Why even put temperature in the curriculum if it's unknown."

"How many of those other facts could be made up too?" Mikasa countered. Neither boy could refute that possibility. It was scary to think they'd been lied to, but more comfortable than hearing they'd been lied to in a way that would intentionally hinder their ability to fight and survive.

"Perhaps we should start questioning everything we've been taught," Armin agreed hesitantly.

"What do these assholes expect from us if they won't even give us the facts?!" Eren roared, ready to punch a wall. That was the crux of the problem. What did the government and military branches get out of less informed students? Authority? The Survey Corps leaving them alone? It was so shortsighted.

The three of them had brought a burning log over to the titan just to make sure they felt the difference between the two correctly. It was difficult to throw away their own preconceptions. And the cold blast of evaporating (or sublimating, so it seemed) flesh was so concentrated that there seemed to be no feeling leading up to it. The fire exuded warmth, then burned if one was too close. The titan burned or did not, so it was easily mistaken for heat.

"What kind of element does that?" Armin wondered aloud presently.

"Huh?" Eren looked up from his angry reverie.

"You know. The boxes that make up everything. –from my grandfather's book. What kind of element sublimates in such a concentrated way, and at everyday temperatures?" The smaller boy prompted.

"You mean those boxes that are supposed to make up air, too? Didn't we put that theory to rest? I don't see any boxes floating around, do you?"

"I told you, they're too small to see!" Armin replied, "Everything's gotta be made of something, even air!"

"Air is nothing. If it were something, it would be in the way," Eren reasoned.

"If it were nothing, what would we get out of breathing it?" came the retort.

His friend frowned in response. "Why are we even talking about this?"

Armin sighed. "I don't know, I just thought that if we knew what titans were made of, we could figure out another way to stop them."

Silence. Eren could now understand why it meant so much to him, but chances were slim that the theory on which Armin was basing his hope was even accurate. Quite frankly, it was one of the least reasonable things Armin had ever tried to convince him of, and that included the salty sea. He didn't want to hurt Armin's feelings, but he didn't want to give him false hopes. He tried a more sensitive approach.

"Armin, just let it go. Someone just made up that theory. It doesn't make sense, even if you want it to." Perhaps Eren was not the most sensitive friend. Armin looked away wordlessly. The taller boy could not tell if he was saddened or angered by his comment.

Truth be told, Armin was not at all dissuaded. He had read other theories of matter, and he and his grandfather had stood by this one for a reason. It was well thought out, well documented, and, according to the book, scientists back in the day had experimentally supported it. The rivaling continuous theory was only speculation in comparison. Armin spent no time doubting himself, and his thoughts moved right to its applications. Unfortunately, he found nothing but frustration. There was no way to ascertain the makeup of titans, especially not without the book in front of him.

Mikasa threw another of many glances that day backward. Eren picked up on the nervous tendency. He looked behind them too, and saw nothing.

"What's back there?" He asked. Mikasa looked forward again and spoke on the edge of a whisper.

"Someone may be following us."

"Some_one_?!" Eren clarified rather noisily. Mikasa hushed him. He began to stage whisper: "We're in titan territory, Mikasa. No one under three meters allowed."

"I've noticed little things since the night after we escaped," Mikasa replied. She was unfazed by Eren's disbelief, but unwavering in her conviction. "Sometimes I can hear crunching, and footsteps that could only be made by human feet, and see movement against the wind just on the edge of my vision from the rooftops. I would pass it off as an animal, but it's kept pace with us, and it's remained too invisible—too clever."

Eren and Armin shared a glance. Mikasa's instincts were trustworthy, and almost always correct, especially the ones she felt confident enough to speak about in such length; but a_ person_ following them? Who?

"A government spy?" Eren suggested, answering the unspoken question.

"The government wouldn't be so shifty. They'd send a loud army if they cared," Armin reasoned, "And even if they would, they wouldn't waste someone so skilled in espionage outside the walls. It's a death sentence."

"A survivor of the Reconnaissance mission?" was another theory quick off Eren's tongue.

Armin gave the idea pause, then, "No one could survive out here that long. And what good would it be if they chased us anyway?"

"Well I don't see you coming up with any ideas!" Eren did not like being shot down, but his frustration quickly subsided when he picked up on Armin's tone.

"Your grandfather was on that mission," he thought aloud.

"My grandfather is dead," came a quick and flat rebuttal. The blonde did not want his hopes raised, but raise they did, like a loaf of yeast-filled dough, his heart felt lighter upon considering even the silly possibility that somehow, someone he cared about had survived out here.

"This person isn't old," Mikasa interjected, then added, "sorry, Armin."

"That doesn't mean they're the only one," Eren responded.

"If people had survived, they would have found their way back to the walls years ago!" Armin said, unwilling to believe his own words, "but thanks for the false hope."

Eren frowned at the rare sliver of venom coming from his usually even-tempered friend. He moved on for the time being.

"Okay, never mind who it is, what do we do?" The brunette inquired.

"Nothing to do but be a bit more cautious," the girl replied. "Look ahead."

Eren did so, and his insides lifted with glee. They were heading straight toward a large, abandoned military facility, sure to have extra maneuver gear and gas galore.

Supplies were a beauteous thing, Eren decided. Food? Excellent. Water? Wonderful. Maneuver gear? Godsend. Slipping into some new pants, belts, and boots; strapping on new sheathes, 3DMG and gas canisters; and restocking his blades: It was the equivalent of finding a ladder to the ground from the second story of a burning building. He could survive. Perhaps he couldn't thrive, but surviving, he could handle. After days of being reminded what it was like to be a helpless twelve year old, it had taken them an unbearable amount of time to find gear in the musty building, at least according to Eren. Mikasa and Armin had already filled up their gas tanks before they even started looking, and then they combed the building to no success for at least a half hour.

After checking that his grappling hooks functioned, he turned to his friends, grinning. They were visibly glad to see Eren feeling more confidant, and hopeful at the prospects of getting to the basement that much faster. Sure, Mikasa was looking away due to her habit of always expecting danger. Armin's smile didn't reach his eyes, so Eren figured he was probably worried about something again. But, the point was, they were their own kind of happy, and he was his own kind of safe.

"I bet there's jerky in the officer's pantries!" Eren said.

The dark haired girl snorted. "You're starting to sound like Sasha." She looked away again. "We should get going. Do you feel that?" Eren focused on his feet and felt the vibrations of nearby Titan footsteps rumble through the floors. There must be big ones nearby. Eren figured there were at least two. "Our luck is awful today, and bound to get worse if others catch on," she observed. She felt at least three different sets of footsteps, heaven forbid littler titans slip into the building as well.

"It's not luck," The short blonde mumbled. Two gazes fixed on him.

"Care to share with the class, Armin?" Eren was only slightly joking, panic settled just behind his strained smirk.

"Remember those architecture books I poured through in training to try and get a better grasp on the safest place for maneuver gear anchor points?"

"Yeah, yeah…" Eren moved his hand in circles, as if the motion could fast-forward past his friend's exposition.

"Sorry." He spoke faster, but did not skip details, possibly feeling they were important to his friends' understanding. "There was a section in it on air ducts. Ways to cool off large buildings through the placement of tunnels that allowed a breeze through. I remember thinking it was a shortsighted idea, since titans seem to sense the presence of humans by scent and—"

"The air ducts are advertising our presence," Eren realized out loud.

Armin nodded and continued, "in every direction. Drafts were coming in from different directions in most of the rooms we visited. We should have arrived in the night. They're going to keep swarming the longer we stay here."

"How long were you going to keep quiet about this?!" The brunette boy bellowed anxiously.

"We had to pick up supplies regardless. We're more likely to succeed in the long run with you able to fight. But Mikasa's right, we shouldn't spend time looking for food." He sounded more nervous than his calculating words let on.

"Let's get to the roof and scout our possible exit routes," Mikasa suggested evenly. The boys nodded solemnly and followed her to the nearest stairwell.

"Doesn't look too good, does it?" Armin was the first too speak. Hardly willing to believe their misfortune, the question came out as a mumble. His other two friends were as pale as he felt. At least three titans were on each side.

"We could wait until nightfall, or even block off all the vents going in one direction and slip out that way?" the shorter boy suggested hopefully.

"Too slow," Mikasa responded from the very ledge of the roof, peering down. The vantage point gave her a view of one of the several entrances to the building. "It would take us hours to find them all and where they lead, and smaller titans are already pouring into the lower levels."

A squeak of dismay exited someone, and it was not Eren or Mikasa.

"Right," Eren said, grinning madly and shaking off his previous discomfort. He connected his maneuver gear handles to a fresh set of blades, and unsheathed them. "It's about time I try some blades out for real!"

"Eren, please," Mikasa put her hand on his shoulder, "I'm perfectly well. You don't have to put yourself in danger. Neither of you do." She added the last sentence after hearing the familiar click of Armin's blades settling into their handles.

"You think I'm just going to let you have all the fun?" came an overzealous answer.

"This isn't a game, Eren," the girl chided.

"Sure it is, remember?" the boy spoke with the deeply buried nostalgia of another dark time in their lives, "If you survive, you win. If you die, you lose. The only way to win is to fight."

Mikasa's gaze hardened at the sentiment. Her grip on him loosened and finally fell to her own gear. She unveiled her own blades with the harsh hum of metal scraping metal, never breaking eye contact with her adopted brother.

"Don't you dare lose," she answered.

Eren's smile became genuine. "I wasn't planning on it." He looked to his other friend. "Do you know which side has the least amount of titans?"

"Last time I checked, the north side had the least. However, the east side has one more, with the added bonus of large houses on either side to slow down the flow of titans coming your way."

Eren nodded. "Eastward we go. Think you could distract a couple so we can slay them a bit easier?"

Armin almost smiled as he gave a nod, glad to have the easiest job, but equally reminded of his shortcomings as a soldier, and the terrifying prospect of himself, or worse, his friends, being eaten alive within the next hour.

He unsheathed his blades. Regardless of whether he was supposed to fight or not, they might prove helpful. He walked to the eastern ledge of the military base and stepped up, glancing downward. The twisted faces and pawing hands made him sick. At least there are only four, he thought, and then chuckled madly to himself. Only four titans. Was he insane? One titan was plenty.

He looked to his friends for an extra moment. Eren stood on his left and Mikasa on his right. He attempted to brand their expressions in his mind. Determination, courage, and liveliness exuded from them both. Should he never meet their eyes again, he had to remember.

"Let's go!" He bellowed, in a higher pitch than he'd intended. His feet left the ledge before his mind could process it, and he was plummeting toward large, awful, greedy hands, and wide, toothy, putrid mouths. He twisted in the air, shot his grapples, and for a heartstopping moment, he could swear that they weren't going to catch him. His gear would unravel completely and leave him hanging like a cherry from its stem, ripe for the indulgence of a passing monster. The cables pulled taught, and his terrified eyes opened again. When he looked down, he saw his friends had jumped out further than him, and had both struck their first blows.

Eren let a growl escape his gritted teeth. There was no better expression for his state of mind as his right grapple pulled him to the suboccipital region of the giant ahead of him. He carved out the biggest, widest strip of flesh he could muster, just to make sure. Then he was bounding off a dead body, and rushing upward through the air so fast his eyes teared. He whooped for good measure as he passed Armin in a blur. He had dreamed of this moment since the day he saw that son of a bitch titan kill his mother, and he would not quit until every last one of them had perished.

He landed back on the ledge of the roof, eyes fixed downward, ready for the next item of prey. Mikasa landed beside him. Her swords were hissing with dissipating titan blood. He observed three titan carcasses below him.

"You won. Best two out of three?" Mikasa almost smiled. But one more titan had already found its way to the eastern side, and Armin was still below them. The boy turned his head upward, squinting into the sun. He motioned in a big swipe forward, toward the long line of tall houses ahead of them, with only one fairly central break in them for nearly thirty meters in either direction. If only there were no break in them at all.

"We should take out the last few and make a break for it beyond that row of houses," Mikasa thought aloud.

"What, you expect them to give up chasing us after a few meters?" Eren responded skeptically.

"I expect to find a place to hide or another plan by then." Mikasa wasted no time jumping off the ledge again. She spotted her target and descended on it, with exhilaration and grace. At the proper altitude, she pivoted her body in the air and flew toward the titan using her right grapple. More sensitive than most, it responded to the feeling of the hardware buried in its neck. It turned toward her, to its right. Mikasa did not account for this and it would have been a crucial mistake if she had used her other side to get closer. As it was, she buried her left grapple near the earlier one and righted herself just in time to deal the finishing blow. It was too close. She had no time to spot another target and decided on finding a wall to cling to momentarily.

"Only one left!" Eren shouted from another titan carcass. The last ten-meter titan was still distracted by Armin.

"Eren, don't stay on the ground! Look!" Mikasa yelled back. Her heart flew into her stomach as a three-meter approached him around the corner. Eren quickly zipped toward Mikasa, frustrated with the newbie mistake he had just made. "Remember your train—" Mikasa tried to remind him, but was cut off.

"I know, I know! Shut up! It's been a while, okay?" He said grumpily.

Armin jumped with all his might off the wall he had been clinging to, and toward the central opening between the buildings across from him. His gear landed in the brick on either side, and he pulled toward them, absorbing his own momentum from the high fall at the end, by allowing himself to fall into a loop-de-loop until his wires were taught. He then unhooked one and fell toward the wall to his left. Mesmerized by the small human's motion the ten-meter class started toward him hungrily. The corners of its lips were cast downward in a permafrown, and its glassy eyes knew no relief from its singular quest: to devour.

"Armin! It's quick!" Eren yelled, and followed Mikasa, who was already heading to the behemoth. She drew a large slice along its eyes, sending it howling. Eren used the time to slingshot around its left side and slice at the back of its neck. It crashed with a mighty thud. Mikasa was already next to Armin.

"That was a risky maneuver! You should have been more careful!" She chided, forever feeling like the mother hen.

"But that was the plan. I distract them; you two take them out. This way was a slightly faster escape route."

The girl's lips flat-lined. Always the schemes with this kid.

"Hey!" Eren called, "Ground fighting the smaller ones isn't half bad!"

Mikasa looked over, and she would have face-palmed if the stakes weren't so high. There Eren was, standing on the ground, the three meter titan once again charging toward him.

"Eren, come here!" She yelled desperately. The titan's speed remained constant as its outreaching hands came dangerously close to the boy, who quickly ducked out of the way, sending the massive beast flailing to stop. It was soon on the ground, dead and evaporating beneath Eren, who was smiling up at them toothily.

"I swear, I am never letting you two near titans again if you keep this up!" the flustered girl grumbled. More were appearing around both corners. Eren flew up to meet his friends' retreating forms. Luck was not on their side, but was it ever? Two more titans, masked by the tall building on the right, greeted them, as if late to a party which would hopefully have some _hors devours_ left.

"I've got this." The brunette's eyes glistened sadistically.

"Go for the back one first!" Mikasa called after him. She gave him a few seconds head start before flying after him. Armin remained, keeping watch through the opening between the buildings, but generally unable to keep his eyes off his friends with worry. Eren really was a fantastic maneuverer. Not Mikasa good, but top ten material. He had passionately practiced day in and day out, and displayed a great practical aptitude for the physics behind it. He flew over the head of the rearmost giant and Armin could see blood slosh out from behind it. Mikasa took the cue to advance and landed on the titan in front, killing it easily.

Armin's next sight was tied for the most horrifying moment of his life. Though Eren had slashed into the titan, and left it for safety atop the nearest building, it became clearer with time that the cut had not been deep enough. By the time Mikasa had killed her own goliath, the one behind her had opened its jaw and dived.

"MIKASA, BEHIND YOU!" The blonde shrieked as loudly as his lungs could manage. The girl looked, just in time to see her impending doom. She crouched down in fear, and wholly vanished behind a glossy set of teeth.

Eren's scream could be heard for miles, while Armin remained voiceless, a lump filling his throat. The clatter of maneuver gear falling to a rooftop stole his attention, and he pushed past his tears to screech, "EREN!"

He could have lost his voice altogether for all Eren cared about what he had to say now. The brunette boy jumped from the rooftop, and a shard of lightning met him with an eerie crack. A 15 meter beast with dark, scraggly hair, and a vicious grin of contempt, ridge-handed the head, from the ears up, right off of Mikasa's killer. The smaller titan fell sideways and crashed against a building before sliding down toward the ground. Meanwhile, Armin, no concern left for his own safety, flew at lightning speed around the fifteen-meter titan form, who flinched at the grapple in his cheek and swatted at his forgotten friend like a mosquito. The large hand got dangerously close to Armin's wires. The boy paled at the implications. If he were this careless with his childhood friend, what did that mean for his self-restraint in the future? Armin landed sloppily on the titan's shoulder. The giant Eren had just bested had begun to recover. Large feet stepped toward it, an earsplitting roar escaping him. He picked up his foot, to stomp. Armin paled. Mikasa was in there, somewhere in the titan. Mikasa's body, possibly still breathing her last breaths, could be minced by the heavy foot above. The realization and the desperate measures he took to avoid it spanned seconds. His sword plunged into the nape of Eren's neck. It was not a blow designed to kill, merely to distract. The giant stumbled backward and cried out. The teenage boy nearly flew off of him, but steadied himself with his maneuver gear.

"Eren!" Armin rasped out as loudly as he could, "Mikasa is in there! Think about Mikasa! Keep Mikasa safe!" He continued babbling at the top of his lungs. Eren. Mikasa. Safety. He had a feeling that thoughts didn't matter as much as the key words. After what felt like a lifetime of persuading a seemingly doglike intelligence, Armin felt the figure he was on dropping to one knee. The titan had just about completed its regeneration, and more were lumbering toward them, but Eren was focused on one and one alone. He threw hammer-fists down at the recovering titan's face, one after another until it stopped moving again. Then he pried open its jaw, tearing at its anatomy mercilessly until Mikasa was uncovered. She was unconscious, possibly dead. Her hand was reaching up to the hilt of one of her swords, which was buried into the tissue of the titan's esophagus, as if she were trying to stay up for dear life. Large hands delicately cradled her form.

He brought her to the tallest building nearby and placed her atop it. His blonde companion bolted toward her. His feet found the roof tiles solidly, and soon after, his knees buckled to meet them. He threw his head down toward the left side of his friend's torso. He listened, panicked, moved his ear, and listened again, searching for the lightest indication of life.

He heard two beats, then two more, and crumpled.


	6. 6 See Chaos

Attack On Titan Fanfiction

The Road Through Mighty Walls

By Trudyann B. 

Even if they never get there, the journey to the basement was perhaps all the three friends needed. (Begins as Eren blocks cannonfire by becoming a titan. Centers around Armin, with some shifts in POV.)

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Wow! I'm back! I had a lot of fun with this chapter! I hope you enjoy! Should it move you to review, I always enjoy the feedback.

CHAPTER 6. In Which our Heroes See Chaos

What was the point of the relief he felt? The small boy in a world of giants was unsure. Tearing his gaze from his alive yet unconscious friend, the sinking feeling returned to his heart with a vengeance. Titans had caught Eren's scent from every direction. Yes, Eren would make sure there was a bloody battle, but in the end, the trio was outnumbered by several orders of magnitude. Eren was smarter than them, and quicker, but that advantage would only take him so far.

A large, low growl reverberated through everything nearby and Armin's attention was brought to its source, his concerned friend, each eye bigger than the small blonde's head, had yet to hear the news.

"She's alive!" Armin shouted upward, "But not for long if you don't protect us!" Another growl and the behemoth turned away from him at a dizzying rate. Eren seemed to be coherent again, at least for now. Two smaller titans had already latched onto his leg and arm, but were soon flung a great distance away. It seemed Eren's strength was increased in this new form, past what would be inferred proportionally.

"Mikasa!" Armin yelled, but she did not wake. Shaking the densely muscular girl by the shoulders itself was no easy feat. He had carried her on his maneuver gear before, but she was conscious at the time, so she could balance her own weight evenly and seem lighter. Armin pulled her into his arms with some effort and dreaded the wall repel he was about to attempt. He hoped there was a basement nearby. A nice, stuffy basement where her scent would not escape easily and she would have the chance to wake up and fight her way back home, likely after Armin and Eren had perished in battle. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it would not budge. Yes, at least maybe one of them could survive.

A booming roar practically shattered his eardrums as Eren rampaged against another four or five titans. The blonde could not count at the moment as he had to decide how best to carry his friend. Bridal style may be more likely to throw him off balance, make him top heavy. The best bet seemed to be to thread his arms under hers and encircle her several times around with the pressure lines that ran from his sword handles to his gear. Turning toward the center of the roof, he prepared to jump backwards off of it and screamed in terror.

"EREN!" A fifteen-meter titan was lunging for the two humans. Armin jumped backwards and to the right, narrowly escaping the large hand. The fall was quick, He hugged Mikasa tightly as he pulled of the grapple releases on his handles. One of them missed. The building it was aiming for was now a titan body and a mound of rubble. Instead, the grapple penetrated deep into the hungry titan. The other caught brickwork, but was soon pulled out as the other more deeply-buried side traveled away from it. The two were pulled backward and Armin could only maneuver so Mikasa would fall on him instead of the other way around.

Their large friend, now rather far away, turned at the sound of the building's destruction, and at the sight of prostrated prey, and bolted for it, already envisioning its bloody defeat. Armin let out a strangled gasp as he and Mikasa hit the back of the titan that had attacked them and toppled off of it, painfully but not fatally to the cobblestone below.

"Fuck." He felt himself say dazedly, then heard the sound of large footsteps. Eren was running toward them with all the consciousness of a rabid dog, the glint in his eye and the speed of his gait gave the teen an eerie feeling that he and Mikasa were once again un-noticeable. He stood with all his shaky might, hiked the unconscious girl's legs to rest on his left blade sheath and worked very hard on putting one leg in front of the other as quickly and gracefully as possible, which was not very.

"Please have a basement. Please don't be crushed before we get there," was the mantra off the boy's tongue as he slammed the door of the nearest in tact townhouse behind him. It muffled the sickening crunching sound of a Titan's head caving in beneath a malicious foot. His eyes darted around for a door, any door that might lead to stairs downward. One was a closet, another, a water closet.

"Armin?" The soft, dark hair that had been flopped unceremoniously onto his right shoulder brushed past his cheek, and a very dazed set of eyes met his own.

"Mikasa!" He was unsure if he could be any happier to see her conscious again. Then he thought about how many titans were outside and concluded that he could be much happier than he was presently. "Can you stand?" His legs shook as he asked.

The girl smiled and clumsily shifted her feet to rest on the floor. Armin managed to untangle her until she was only using his shoulder for support, then standing on her own.

"What happened? You saved me?" She asked. She received a half-hearted smile in return. Another familiar inhuman roar pierced the air.

"No, Eren did," the blonde replied. Mikasa's dark eyes widened. She buried her face into her scarf and inhaled.

"He's a titan again. Is he attracting titan attention? How many are there now?" With a sickening twist, Armin wished Mikasa were unconscious again. Because now she would try to go back out there and fight, and insist on dying to protect Eren, and maybe him, and wouldn't it be best if she could just stay safe?

"I don't know, I was focusing on getting you to safety." His blue eyes looked to the ground beside him.

"What's the plan?" she asked.

His gaze darted back up. "I don't have one. This is the absolute worst case scenario."

Disbelieving brown eyes met his own wide ones. "If I know anything about you, Armin, is that you can always think way worse than the worst case scenario, and plan accordingly."

The boy bit his lip thoughtfully. Was that supposed to be a compliment, or a statement on his perpetual pessimism? He once again flitted through his knowledge of their situation until he hit upon a realization. "There is something, but it's risky."

"What's the plan?" She repeated. She didn't need to remind him how stupid a risk analysis was presently. Armin couldn't help but grin, perhaps a bit madly.

"There are underground tunnels not far from here. If we can get Eren to block the entrance with his body in such a way that we can cut him out, but the titans will be deterred, we might be able to escape the swarm and lose them."

"But our scent will eventually escape out the other side of the tunnel. We'd be trapped on the other side," Mikasa responded quickly. Armin nodded.

"That's the risky part. We could wait a while until most titans are coming toward Eren and away from the other side of the tunnel, but then we risk losing Eren, and there's still no guarantee. I don't know exactly where all the exits are either. We may be able to evade them through use of natural air currents, but it's not certain."

"More likely than waiting here to be devoured," the girl reasoned. The blonde nodded again. Let it never be said that these three weren't capable of taking risks. Large footfalls outside seemed to be getting closer, honing in on the suspicious smell of some small and tasty bipedal creatures.

"Come on," Mikasa ordered and ran toward the nearest window. On her way, she picked up a kitchen chair as if it were a feather and threw it straight through the glass. Soon, the two rouge soldiers were outdoors again. They heard indeterminate smashing on the other side of the house.

"Do you hear that?" The dark haired girl said.

"Yeah, sounds like we just barely escaped!" came the reply.

"No," Mikasa said, "Not that. Maneuver gear." Armin looked down at the gear lying dormant at both their sides, and then heard faint but familiar shooting, thunking, and metallic whooshing. His eyes widened.

"The person who was following us?" he guessed.

"Not likely. Too many of them. Unless they brought backup." More crashing from the other side of the building was heard, then the slash and roar of a defeated titan. The friends shared an alarmed gaze and silently decided to go check it out.

Mikasa got to the roof first, and yelled before the shorter boy even understood the situation. "No! Eren!" Blue eyes met the Mikasa's fleeing back, and then saw the source of her terror. Survey corps members were swarming a large chunk of titans, the center of which was Eren's fifteen-meter body, in a bad state, already overcome by pure numbers. The giant gave a mighty yell and started flailing and spinning, but the movement was only able to loosen a few bodies. Then he tried running, which was slightly more successful, but could not get rid of the littler forms, which he began prying off and throwing one by one like leeches. More arrived to replace them, and soon humans were also threatening him, and he was responding with vigor, hitting some lines. Corps members went flying, and Armin's stomach fluttered for the thousandth time that day. How would Eren feel if he got out of this mess and realized that he had cost a soldier his life. Once again with little care for his own safety, the blonde made a break directly for the most intelligent titan, and currently the least intelligent human, in a five-kilometer radius. It became apparent that Eren lost quite a bit of his mind in this form, and operated on instincts alone.

Mikasa sunk a grapple into Eren's clavicle in order to take care of a titan on his right, and was met with a shock when Eren grabbed her line with his left hand and began to pull. The girl curled instinctively, pulling her head forward and under her arms, and her knees under her chin. She shortened the line as much and as quickly as she could to minimize the impact on her body that would inevitably occur. She would not be breaking her back today. Eren wrenched the annoying device out of his neck with a grunt and threw it, and Mikasa, to his left. The strain of the quick direction change on her body was significant, and she unfurled slightly but managed to keep her body mechanics in check. She could hear her smaller friend scream her name in response to the view.

Eren's muscles tensed as the sound of his friend's name broke through the haze of his mind. He was killing titans. Killing titans made him happy. These little pinpricks and cobweb-like strings that kept getting on him were a big annoyance, though. What were they doing there? That name. He cared about the meaning of that name. There was a person in his life called that, and protecting that person was important to him. He whirled toward the source of that name. The voice that called it was familiar too. He would protect a person with a voice like that. He recalled doing it before. Protect and kill. Which was more important again? A small yellow-haired person took advantage of his searching gaze to shoot one of those stupid pinpricks at his forehead. Eren grunted with annoyance and he made a move to pull it away.

"Stop!" Came that terrified voice, the one that he was supposed to protect. Eren blinked. He let the little person perch on his nose. A titan flew at Eren and joined those already latched to him. A roar. The titan was flung away. He was running again.

"Eren," the unimpressive, but important voice said from his nose, "Something something plan. Something tunnel. Something escape something survey corps. Mikasa something. That way. No!" A pinprick hit the nape of his neck, he went to swat it away, but the little voice stopped him with its annoying sense and a pointing finger. He decided to protect his neck with his hand instead. He regretted it. Roar. Eren's hand had been sliced at savagely.

Armin flew around to the back of Eren. A green-cloaked woman with auburn hair eyed him with incredulity. She was positioned atop the giant hand she had just sliced through, baffled by its presence upon the weak spot of her foe. She looked at the coat of arms on the uniform of the young boy who just greeted her. "A trainee? What are you doing here, kid?"

Armin ignored the question, it would presently help no one to answer it.

"This titan is not going to hurt anyone if you don't attack it! He's acting on his instincts to kill…other…titans! Focus on the others and he will help you before he will hurt you!" It was amazing his voice was even still working, he realized momentarily.

"We have orders to kill this abnormal! It's been attacking titans that our men have been trying to slay. They've almost died because of it!"

Armin wondered how crazy he would sound if he tried to explain that this titan was his childhood friend. "This one is more intelligent than the others, and it is killing other titans at an alarming rate! It's working as an ally; we should protect it if anything!"

"Well I'm sorry, kid, but you're not my squad leader. She raised her swords and tried again. Armin's blades blocked hers with a screeching clang. The woman pulled her weapons back, shocked.

"I'm begging you, focus on other titans! Haven't you noticed that this one hasn't attacked you yet?!"

Conflict flashed across her face before settling on a frown, "You really believe this thing can help us?"

Another grapple buried into the back of Eren's scalp, carrying with it a small raven-haired man with dark eyes, who landed gracefully against the continuously running form.

"What's going on here, Petra?" He surveyed the boy with little amazement. "And who the fuck are you?"

Armin tried his best to salute and keep his balance. It was sloppy. "Armin Arlert of the 104th trainee squad, sir! This aberrant titan has no blood lust except for titan flesh and has proven itself a valuable ally!" The man and woman shared a glance. Yes, they thought he had lost it.

"That may be, but we can't exactly be sure an abnormal titan will keep its word. Stand down, soldier," the small man retorted.

"But Sir!" Perhaps he should have tried the truth, Armin thought; perhaps the survey corps would have been more understanding than the garrison. Based on this experience, he doubted it. Time just then seemed to go very slowly and very quickly all at once. The man retrieved the blades from his sheath and ordered Petra to hold Armin back. "He's not attacking you, titans are attacking him, doesn't that seem like a bit more than an abnormal titan? Please! Listen to me for just—" His voice cracked, his dry vocal cords couldn't handle any more yelling. He would yell anyway. "—one second!"

The officer poised himself to deal a finishing blow.

A crack.

A shock of light from the periphery.

There are few things more baffling than the sudden, inexplicable existence of a massive anthropomorphic being. However, since his best friend had started making a habit of it, Armin truly believed he could no longer be shocked. He noticed the error of that thought presently, though he had very little time to view his newest large assailant properly.

A massive hand, with seemingly no skin, smacked him and his two companions out of the sky.


	7. 7 Seperated

Attack On Titan Fanfiction

The Road Through Mighty Walls

By Trudyann B. 

Even if they never get there, the journey to the basement was perhaps all the three friends needed. (Begins as Eren blocks cannonfire by becoming a titan. Centers around Armin, with some shifts in POV.)

CHAPTER 7. In Which Our Heroes Are Separated

Mikasa had recently recovered from the hard blow dealt to her by an unknowing Eren. The girl had managed to right herself enough that the impact she sustained was not terribly detrimental. She had rolled quite a way on a rooftop; shingles had peeled up to meet her. She was bleeding from two lacerations, one on her cheek and the other along her forearm. She had countless bruises. Nothing new there. However one of them, on her shin, felt deep, perhaps muscular, making it difficult to walk. Beyond these physical injuries, there was one on her heart. Eren had just hurt her. Badly. She shook it off quickly. A seemingly supernatural force that no one really understood was blinding him. He might as well be possessed.

As she reattached the last piece of her maneuver gear to her back once again, Eren stumbled past her, pushing through an ever-growing mass of titans. Her eyes widened when she noticed three people struggling against each other on the back of his neck. She readied herself to intervene, flinching at the pain in her leg. A bolt of powerful lightning met the ground very near the house on which she stood. She was blown back by its energy. She allowed herself one deeply frustrated growl. Sure, she had landed harder on her tailbone before, but all this being thrown around was not Mikasa's style. Concentrate, she thought to herself. She took a deep breath to calm the unusual flare of emotions.

A fifteen-meter, skinless titan, seemingly female in shape, had just swiped the three people off of Eren's back and now she had Eren in a vice-like full-Nelson; both her arms were lacing under his armpits and backward round his head. She flinched as she witnessed Armin try to recover himself in the air only to hit wall and slump to the ground, at least unconscious. A precarious lump formed in her throat, and for the fifth time in her life, she was unable to suppress it.

Once when she had lost her parents, second for her adoptive mother. The third time was when she lost her brother, and the fourth when she got him back. Life is so fragile, and she had no idea if his had just shattered before her very eyes. A roar pulled her back to the moment, and to what she was able to control. He might be alive, she decided. He didn't hit the wall all that hard. The culprit for his life hanging in the balance: this new titan who was now threatening her brother. Mikasa's brow furrowed and her eyes became murderous.

Eren was roaring and struggling full force. He stomped the feet right off of the female titan, who responded to her lack of balance by widening her stance. Mikasa flew toward her and slashed at the back of the titan's neck precisely, but her blades broke on impact, sending reverberations straight up her forearms and humerus. She barely held onto the handles of her gear, but sped away with practiced grace. The titan had hardened its skin so that she could not kill it. Mikasa gritted her teeth. The bitch had miraculously outmatched her, and the dark-eyed girl was not having it.

It opened its mouth, as if it were about to bite the boy out of the male titan's neck. Without a thought, Mikasa whipped past the temple of the female titan and slashed both of its eyes with the broken ends of her blades, making sure to detach them so that each one stuck in its eyes like splinters. It roared in abrupt agony. Eren took advantage of the momentary weakness to struggle free and continue running, but he was pulled down into a mass of Titans. Mikasa screamed his name, but could think of little to do to save him. She pulled another set of blades. Oh well, she decided, she'd kill them off until they killed her.

As she killed the topmost titan of the swarm, and had just dodged the grasp of another, she noticed the roar of the eyeless titan had not stopped, but had shot up in both octave and decibel. Once she reached temporary safety, she instinctively plugged her ears to the sound. The female titan was running away screaming bloody murder, and the titan hoards were following it. One by one, Eren's predators clambered from the pile, as in a daze, and then hungrily followed the screaming titan. Others ran after her as well, some still had confused Survey Corps members grappled to their backs. Mikasa was more than a little shocked. She had no idea what was going one, but took full advantage of the situation to get Eren to safety. Now, to check on Armin. The lump in her throat had not once subsided in the chaos.

When Armin regained consciousness, his head was pounding more than a little painfully. He furrowed his eyebrows and groaned, but then realized two very important things that made him settle back down and keep his eyes closed as if he had only stirred in his sleep. The first, he was on a horse, resting against a woman who had her arms around him and her hands on the reins. Second, his arms were tied quite painfully behind him at the wrists. This was a captive situation, and his only asset for escape would be surprise. Now if only he could think further past the pounding of his blood vessels. He breathed slowly and deeply until it was a bit more manageable.

Where was he? He remembered that his friends had been fighting for their lives in a titan attack. Eren had become a titan, which didn't bode well for their chances of escape. A titan had smacked him directly out of the air. Judging by its sudden appearance, it was probably a human like Eren and the Colossal and Armored titans. Had Mikasa been able to go along with the plan and get Eren to the safety of the tunnels? Would they be able to escape the tunnels if they had? He tried to estimate the likelihood of their escape, but there were too many unknown variables, mostly negative ones, and in the end, he could only hope that by some miracle, his friends had survived one more battle.

It didn't work. He despaired, certain that the plan had failed. Numbness filled his insides. The horse he was riding stumbled down off of a curb, the body encircling him adjusted, and Armin was reminded that he had more pressing issues to attend to before he could properly worry, or grieve. Mikasa must be rubbing off on me, he thought, half-amused. Oh please let her be all right. He didn't know what deity he was praying to, but it had better be listening.

Now what was he up against? He listened. There was a horse below him, several walked in front of him, and there were two on either side. Nothing seemed to be behind him. The arms around him were very muscular. He considered dropping off the horse by ducking under her arms and sliding off butt-first, but he doubted he would have enough time, nor was he sure he was that flexible. Not to mention he would bruise his gear, if not his tailbone in the landing.

Wait, his maneuver gear was still on? He felt it. Why would they leave maneuver gear on their captive? Perhaps they were in too much of a hurry. What it meant to him, though, was that he could outrun the horses, were he to escape. In fact, come to think of it, there was a particularly sharp edge on his maneuver gear that he might be able to reach with his bound wrists. He'd cut himself on it before several times in the past while cleaning it. Maybe that piece of crap edge will finally come in handy, he thought with a sense of dramatic irony.

But how to escape from the horse? It had been quite a while since he had learned how to ride a military horse. With his legs around each side, could he back the horse up, even rear it onto its hind legs? Yes! Though he risked landing on a very angry lady with strong arms who could definitely hold him captive. On the other hand, the wind would probably be knocked out of her. He'd have time to escape. He hoped it wouldn't hurt her too badly. He didn't want to hurt Survey Corps members, but he had to escape and get back. On the off chance that his friends were still alive in the tunnels, he needed to help them escape. Besides, hell if the Survey Corps would understand his reasons for his earlier insubordination.

He decided. Kicking as hard as his legs could, he managed the very thing he had planned. The horse reared, the woman behind him gasped, and slipped backward along with Armin. He landed on her. She was smart enough to protect her head from impact, but her lungs were not so lucky, and he took advantage of her incapacitation to roll off of her. His arms did achieve the flexibility needed to break his restraints. He reached for his handles, shot grapples toward the surrounding buildings. It was perfect. He'd escaped! He'd done it!

A hand scooped him up by the back of the jacket and deposited him back onto a horse. Armin dropped his gear handles and tried desperately to shrug out in time, but suddenly became very suspicious of how its tight-fitting design was literally captivating. Once placed on the horse, his captor swung a strong arm around his midriff. He was a tall, blonde, and mustachioed man who would not give in to the boy's juvenile struggling. The small dark-haired man who had nearly killed Eren pulled around next to the horse. With the time to think, Armin recognized him as Captain Levi, humanity's strongest soldier.

"Ah look, the asswipe's awake," he said with little care. It was as if Armin's escape was a trivial matter. In fact, it probably was. Armin indulged in some self-deprecation. They weren't even trying that hard to hold on to him. "Good job, Mike." Levi then turned to Armin's previous captor, an auburn-haired woman who was just getting up and laughing uncontrollably. "I thought you said you could handle him, Hanji."

Hanji's laughter died down and she took a deep breath. "He's weak as all get out, but the kid's got some wits about him." She took another deep breath, "Woooh that fall did a number on me."

"I'm very sorry, ma'am," Armin said, figuring he might as well. He obviously wasn't going anywhere. She only laughed back, and waved away his apology, remounting her horse.

"Wits, huh? Obviously something you lack for being lax in restraining him, shitty goggles."

"Aww, Levi, I'm fine. But thanks for asking." She then addressed Armin and Mike while jabbing a thumb over her shoulder toward Levi, "Always looking out for me, the big lug."

"Tch. We need to move. Keep a stronger hold on your pets next time." Without another word, the three horses sprinted forward and back toward the rest of their squad. Armin knew a bit of the Survey Corps' long-range strategy. While it was not required training, he caught himself studying it only because he found it incredibly interesting. He wondered where he was within the formation. Even accounting for its tighter proximity due to the buildings around them, he figured center-rear. After all, humanity's strongest soldier would not be sitting on the outskirts. He was much too valuable. Though they had some distance to go, they were gaining on wall Rose. Armin felt despondency on two counts. First, he realized how lovely a commodity horses were. They were moving so quickly. Second, they were moving so quickly in the wrong direction. Hanji pulled up next to his and Mike's horse.

"So, kid, what's your name?" she asked, in a chatty tone.

"Armin Arlert, sir," he replied.

"Yeesh, where'd you get that name?" came the reply.

"You should talk, Hanji," Mike replied, "Get to what you wanted to ask him."

Hanji chuckled. Armin realized she was the kind of person who would die before she gave up a chance to laugh. "Touché, Mike, touché." She turned back to the smaller blonde. "Do you know why you're being held?" She asked.

"I'm going to the military court due to insubordination, Sir."

"Ah yes, the technicality that allowed me to keep you," She grinned, and for a moment the light caught her glasses and he was unable to see her eyes behind them, just the reflection of his own features, confusion writ across them.

"Sir, please, if you don't care whether justice is brought to me, I implore you to let me go back and I will never bother you again," he begged. They were moving so fast. Way too fast. In the wrong direction. His stomach was turning.

"If you're being held for insubordination, why on earth do you keep saying 'Sir'? Anyway, I just need to satisfy some curiosity, and you're my only source of information. I don't know why you want to be titan chow so badly, but if you answer my questions, I'll let you go. Live and let live, I always say…" She put a finger to her chin before saying in the most morbid tone possible, "Unless the one living is withholding valuable information from you, then circumstances change."

Who was this woman? "I'll answer your questions, sir—uhm. Yeah. But you won't believe the answers. What do you want to know?"

"Isn't it obvious?" She shot back. Armin thought. Probably something like: 'Why were titans fighting each other?,' He remained silent.

"Why were titans fighting each other?! It couldn't just be two abnormals. One appeared out of nowhere, like the Colossal or Armored titans. Both of the two aberrants were being ruthlessly chomped by hoards of other titans, and fighting each other." Armin's already hurting head spun from this information. Yes, he had assumed that another human turned titan to get them off of Eren. Hanji said it attacked Eren, but that it was not the Colossal or Armored titan. They had another accomplice? Or was it a completely different person with different goals? Was this who was following them? How did he get out of the walls and survive without any help or making his presence more ostentatiously known?

"And then the one female aberrant screamed and ran away, and every single titan followed her! We haven't seen one since! Not to mention, we went to check out the titan _you_ were trying to protect and it was dead, rotting away, with a huge hole in its neck. You can explain this. I know you can!"

Female aberrant. All the titans gone. Eren extracted from his titan form. Light came back into Armin's blue eyes. Mikasa had retrieved Eren! The titans were gone! How was this possible? He needed to get back to them.

"IKnowYouWon'tBelieveMeButThoseSentientTitansHavePeopleControllingThemFromTheBackOfTheirNeckAndOneOfThemIsMyBestFriend,Eren,WhoSavedABunchOfSoldiersInTheRecentBattleForTrostByKillingNearlyAllTheTitansSwarmingTheSupplyTower,AndWeWereAboutToBeKilledForTreasonBecuaseTheyThoughtHeWasOnTheTitan'sSide,SoWeEscapedToGetProofOfHisInnocenceAndCanIPLEASEGoNow?" He sputtered, and once again tried to struggle away. It was a pathetic try. A moment passed. Armin wrestled with the motionless, muscular arm around his waist, Hanji stared at the boy, wordless and wide-eyed, and Mike inhaled sharply through his nose.

"Okay," the brunette woman said after quite a bit of thinking. She cupped fingers around her mouth in thought. "Hm. You can't make this shit up…" She murmured. She looked back to Armin, who was gazing back with desperate eyes. She was his only way out of this predicament.

"Armin, was it?" He nodded. "Let's go off the assumption that the ridiculous notion you just proposed is true. The next questions we must ask ourselves are, how did they achieve this power, what do these human titans want, and, even more applicably, what will knowing that information mean for our understanding of titans as a species?"

The boy's face crinkled into a sad smile. This woman may be detaining him. She may be completely off her rocker, but then again, perhaps he was too, because, "I've been asking myself the exact same question!"

Eren's first sight since seeing Mikasa eaten whole by a titan was a dark alley street, with soft black hair and a red scarf bordering his periphery.

"Mikasa, you're alive!" He tried to sound how he felt: the most relieved and excited he had been since he had miraculously survived being eaten himself. Instead, the sentence came out scratchy, and slightly exhausted. He was on Mikasa's back. He tried to struggle off, but found he had a hard time moving. It pissed him off. His little struggle earned him a tighter hold from Mikasa and a warning glance.

"Yeah, I was unconscious myself, but apparently you saved me as a titan," she replied. Eren thought back. He had drowned his absolute turmoil with blood-red rage at the thought of Mikasa dying just like his mom had. He had a clear goal in mind as he bit through the skin of his hand: Revenge. Had he actually been able to save Mikasa in the process?

"I thought me turning into a titan would be the end of us. What gives, Armin?" He expected his lighthearted tease to be met with a calm and carefully considered answer, along with some chiding, from behind him. He was met with silence. Not even footsteps, he realized. He swung his head around to survey the alley behind him, and the rest of his spasming body followed. He fell off of his sister and painfully onto his elbows. Where was his best friend? His insides melted and his throat became immediately blocked with a bubble of rage and anguish.

"Armin was captured by the Survey Corps. We're following them to get him," Mikasa said quickly. Eren took a moment to recover his emotions.

"Oh. The Survey Corps. Wait, they were here? Why? And why did they take him?" He squeaked.

"I don't know, but it seemed he was trying to protect you from them. They're probably returning from their mission early because Trost's gate was broken. I couldn't get you out and retrieve Armin in time. They have horses and he was unconscious." She had hidden from them, knowing they would probably be taken into custody should they be found too. How much did the Survey Corps know? Were they told to keep an eye out for three teenaged deviants? She watched as he was proclaimed alive, tied up, loaded on horseback, and taken away. They wouldn't be able to catch up if they didn't have gear, so she had to spend some time searching for where Eren had dropped his equipment and put it back on him. Thankfully and a bit eerily, there were no titans nearby. "Hopefully they'll have set up camp soon and we can bust him out there. Of course it would help our speed if you could move. We could fly there."

Eren scowled. He tested out his muscles by pulling his fingers into fists. Painfully prickling life came back in to them.

"I'm working on it." He said through gritted teeth.


	8. 8 Make a Frenemy

Attack On Titan Fanfiction

The Road Through Mighty Walls

By Trudyann B. 

Even if they never get there, the journey to the basement was perhaps all the three friends needed. (Begins as Eren blocks cannonfire by becoming a titan. Centers around Armin, with some shifts in POV.)

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

There is now a bonus chapter slapped on to the end of chapter two! Go check it out! It has little to do with the plot, but it was fun to write.

As you can tell from the wait, this chapter was a monster to write. Mostly because I was obsessed with Hanji and Armin talking, but it kept dragging and not hitting the right plot points. Add that to the challenge of graduating from college (which I successfully accomplished; yay!) and you have a hell of a delay. Big shout out to liveitup101 for lighting a fire under my ass to keep going. Your review and pm were inspirational.

CHAPTER 8. In Which Our Heroes Make a Frenemy

Dusk had wafted over the golden landscape, and shadows once long and lined with bronze gave way to a shimmering, deep blue. A three-quarter moon glowed on the Corps, which had stopped moving moments ago so people could get a quick nap before they arrived in Trost. Mike had confiscated, and sniffed, Armin's gear. The boy hardly noticed, as the clip of his conversation with Hanji had accelerated. They had reviewed the story of discovering Eren's abilities, and what had happened to them since. They had considered the identities of the other three possible titan shifters, and come up blank, and they were currently discussing the composition of the beasts.

"The interesting thing is, Eren's titan form seems to appear from the air," Armin said.

"We don't know their normal origins, and Titans are extremely light."

"And they're cold, not hot. Did you know that?"

"Oh, of course. As soon as I was named head investigator of captive titans, I walked right up to the higher ups in Sina and asked for some equipment to test them, including thermometers. The books on titans we have are so old, and there were no sources as to how the facts were determined." The boy's eyes brightened. It sounded like she was using very old way of thinking, one that he had not found except upon dusty, yellow pages.

"Yes?"

"Well, they said there was no budget for it. Said it to me right over a nice expensive maple desk. I mean I understand mercury is in short supply, but what could be more important? I fought and fought with them, but all I could get were some spare tarps, spears, extra blades, and notebooks." The boy's gaze faded again. "But I did test their temperature the best I could with my own senses, and realized that the burning sensation I felt was probably due to cold rather than warmth. So I wrote it down, and sent it in to Commander Erwin, who got orders from the Military Police to turn me in as a traitor to the king unless I retracted my claims."

"They were lying purposefully!" Armin blurted.

"There are a lot of things that make me mad in this world, kiddo. Titans are the least of it. The only thing that keeps me sane is that I'm working for Commander Erwin, who lets me keep experimenting."

What use was humanity to the king if they were in the dark, unable to think or learn? Armin's blood boiled. Everything about this situation was so convoluted and backwards. Meanwhile, he felt like the one kid who had been raised by a family that did not fear the unknown.

He shook his anger to the best of his ablility. This woman was different from most. She agreed with his skepticism. She thought like him. Right now, he had to pick her brains for more information.

"But if they're cold, what could that mean they're made of?" The boy inquired.

"Some sort of gas, I assumed," Hanji mused.

"But you can't push around gases."

"Not unless they're inside a bubble," she corrected.

"You're proposing titans are bubbles?" The boy was obviously skeptical.

"Sort of, yeah. Or a supercooled liquid sloshing around inside a tough outer layer." Hanji illustrated her _sloshing_ with exaggerated gesticulations.

"And the skin originates from air," the blonde ascertained.

Hanji hummed positively. "That's your conjecture."

"But how could anything possibly take air and make it liquid or crystal?" Her companion wondered.

"Well, there are two ways to initiate that kind of phase shift."

As she said this, Armin's brows raised. From what he could remember, "No, there's one. Temperature."

"You're forgetting pressure."

Armin involuntarily gasped.

A few meters away, special unit squad leader Levi involuntarily overheard them. "Great," he mumbled, "now there's two of them."

It was simple for Mikasa and Eren to sneak around the outer ranks of the Survey Corps. After all, the corps was on guard for titans. They were not expecting more people out here.

"All I've ever wanted was to be part of the Survey Corps," Eren sighed, "I never thought I'd have to turn against them."

"We're just breaking Armin out," Mikasa reasoned, "It's not like we're hunting them for breakfast."

"Need some help?" Came a third voice from directly behind Eren. Within two seconds, the brunette had screamed, tried to strike the person behind him, and ended up being painfully flung to the ground. He rested on his cervical spine, his legs thrown over his head. He peered dizzily out from under his legs at a retreating hooded figure, of which Mikasa was in hot pursuit. Then, two boots ran over and stopped in his line of sight, facing him.

"Who the hell are you?" Came the voice of a rather confused man. Eren's brow furrowed in frustration.

Someone who just got his ass handed to him, Eren thought to himself as he stood. His neck throbbed with a familiar ache. He had been thrown like hundreds of times. He now knew, without a doubt, who had been following them. What he still wondered was: how and why?

Pressure. If you relieved the pressure that kept the titan together in a certain location, you were golden. But why, he questioned, why just the neck? Hanji admitted she had no real clue, just an idea that it had something to do with the anatomy. The analogous area in a human would be where the brain meets the body, so cutting through it was enough of an injury to permanently disable it. Armin posited that the integument may be thinner there, so pressure could be more easily released. Hanji seemed most intrigued.

Their minds were practically humming with activity. The question of how such pressure was created from thin air remained unanswered, and he wanted so badly to understand it. When he asked Hanji her opinion, she admitted cluelessness.

Armin's train of thought met a brick wall. His eyes wearily rested upon the stars. His focus blurred until each celestial pinpoint scattered and twinkled like the evening sun glinting off the surface of a disturbed canal. Just a few years ago, he and Eren would sit on the canal, and imagine that it stretched to the horizon, like the pictures of the sea in his book.

Armin snapped back to the present. Wait…

"I'll have to test integument thickness next time we capture a titan," Hanji was saying.

"Why am I here?" Came a completely unexpected response.

The woman chuckled. "I have no idea how you managed to stay alive out here so long, but—"

"No, no," he interjected, "I've answered all your questions. Why am I not free to go?"

"Ah." Hanji glanced down, unsure how to phrase her thoughts. "Two reasons," she confessed, "First, I haven't yet decided if conversing with you will continue to prove useful, as it has so far. Second, if your friend can really turn into a titan, then my best shot at studying him is keeping you here as bait."

Armin's expression turned incredulous.

"I mean that in the best possible way!" She insisted, and ruffled his hair for good measure. He retreated from her touch.

"We can't bring Eren back into the walls! He'll be killed by the Military Police! We need to go to Shinganshina and bring back information about titans that his dad kept locked away—to exchange it for our liv—" His voice stopped working. There was a fatal flaw in his logic.

The squad leader voiced it: "You're going to give information about titans to a government that specializes in covering information up, in hopes that it will win you favor?"

The blonde buried his head in his knees, "That was the plan," he mumbled, ashamed he hadn't thought of it sooner.

"Let us take you back for a trial. The Survey Corps can think of a way to keep you both alive. If you're to be believed about your friend's power, his potential as humanity's ally is too great to lose."

The boy recalled the crazed eyes of the commanding officer, who had tried to murder the three of them. He remembered the resolution in Captain Levi's face as he nearly killed Eren. Armin resolved that he could not afford Hanji's trust in the Corps.

Besides which, Eren and Mikasa were not coming back for him, were they? Surely, they would have enough sense to keep going. At the end of the last battle, they must have been less than twenty kilometers from Shinganshina. Who knew what that basement held? Maybe they would find new hope there. They could find a mass weapon against titans, or information on where they came from.

"That basement could tell us where titans come from," he rationalized, "It could hold the key to defeating them! We can't just run back into the walls away from an opportunity like that."

The woman exhaled sharply. "Listen, Arnold."

"Armin."

"Armin, listen. I understand you and your friend want a magic bullet that cures all your woes, but exactly what you need is not going to be in that basement. Think of the new hope your friend can give humanity. We might be able to take back Trost, or even wall Maria! It's irresponsible to humanity to let that kind of power escape into the world to get eaten alive. We can persuade the government. They'll listen. Have faith in us."

Yes, have faith in someone who couldn't even change the government's mind about publishing a fact in a book, Armin thought bitterly. "They're not coming back for me anyway," he finally voiced.

She snorted. "You should have some faith in your friends, too."

A short distance away, they heard someone bellow before hitting the ground. The blonde boy recognized the shout. "Eren?"

"Who the hell are you?" Asked a man from the adjacent squad. The brunette soldier in a battered training corps uniform stood before his interrogator and saluted.

"Eren Jeager of the 104th Trainee squad, Sir."

Armin ran toward the words. Hanji followed on his heels.

"And how—" The man started, before a young voice cut him off.

"Eren, why are you he—?"

"This is your friend?" Hanji interrupted in turn.

The survey corps member who first questioned Eren piped in, "Squad Leader Hanji, you're attracting rogue trainees like Levi attracts anonymous love notes." More and more Survey corps members were drawn to the conversation. A soft community murmur grew, filled with questions like, "What's going on?" and "Who are they?" along with befitting answers and guesses.

Hanji ignored the man's remark, "Young intruder, do me a favor and turn into a titan, please?"

"Oh no," a tall, kindly-looking brunette man next to Armin mumbled, "She's finally lost it."

"Armin, you told her?!" an aggressive, young voice shouted. The addressed smiled sheepishly.

The background noise, which had been growing louder, perplexingly ceased very suddenly. The culprit of the silence stepped forward. Eren looked down at the raven-haired soldier, and his face lit up.

"Captain Levi!" Eren smiled. Humanity's strongest soldier was coming over to greet him?

"Four eyes, please explain why have we have now gained two more trainee brat mouths to feed?" Eren's smile dropped into a frown.

"My plan worked!" She exclaimed unapologetically, and with a small hop in her step she shouted, "Squad, please capture this young man as well. For believed traitorous behavior."

"What?!" Eren exclaimed with disbelief, "I'm not a traitor! Armin, what did you say?!"

"Squad leader Hanji, please!" Armin begged, but neither she, nor her faithful squad, paid any notice. Even the guy who thought she had lost her mind moved forward to capture Eren. He put up a valiant effort to escape. He was a legendary hand-to-hand fighter among the 104th, second only to Annie. Meanwhile, Hanji's squad had, like most, ignored that part of their training. However, it was one against five. Two attacked head on, going for Eren's hands. Eren dodged to the left of both of them with lightning speed, tripped the person closest to him off balance and flung him round, hitting the other with his captor's legs on the way down. Another came from behind, and he dodged away, right into the awaiting arms of a taller man, who, together with two others, subdued the teenager.

Eren cursed and protested, but it was no use. His hands were bound, and his maneuver gear removed. Armin's eyes followed the maneuver gear to a nearby cart while Eren was walked over to Hanji, who could not be happier.

"Nice to finally meet you, Ryan!" She chirped.

"Eren." Armin corrected.

"Right," she said, "Shinganshina names are so bizarre."

Eren was not amused. He glared at her spitefully. "What have I done to deserve this treatment?"

The blonde opened his mouth to announce that he did not deserve it, but could not get a word in.

"Ah yes," the woman interjected, "Very sorry to technically be arresting you, but you see I can't let your talent get lost outside the walls, if Armond over here is actually telling the truth."

"Armin," Eren seethed.

"Right."

Red faced, the bound boy began to spit, "I don't know who you think you are, but our frie—"

"Why didn't you keep going to Shinganshina," Armin quickly and loudly interrupted.

The brunette raised an eyebrow at his friend. "Well I didn't really have much of a choice. Mi—"

"How'd you get here so fast?!" Wide blue eyes met confused green.

Eren's brow furrowed deeply before understanding hit him. Don't mention Mikasa. "Maneuver gear," he answered after a moment.

"Oh. Of course. Eren, thank you, but you shouldn't have come back for me. I was trying to trade information for my freedom, but _Squad Leader_ _Hanji_ went back on her promise to try and lure you here," His voice dripped with as much blame as possible.

"Is anyone listening to the solid reasons for my decisions?" Hanji defended.

"It won't work!" Armin exclaimed. "They're going to kill us."

Before the woman could respond, Eren inquired, "But why isn't Armin bound at the wrists?"

"Because he doesn't need to be," Hanji laughed, "Poor kid's pretty defenseless. Are you sure you were both in the same trainee class?"

Without warning, Eren's leg swept out to trip Hanji, but she jumped away and laughed louder. "Okay, sorry! I didn't mean to hit a nerve there! Woah!" while she was preoccupied, Armin had bolted toward the cart that stored their maneuver gear. "Moblit!" she yelled.

The brunette man from earlier leapt out of nowhere and tackled the child. The boy huffed out a pained "oof!"

"I stand corrected," Hanji sighed, "bind his hands again too, please?"


End file.
